na 


MEMOIRS    OF    LIFE 
AND    LITERATURE 


Books  by  W.  H.  MALLOCK 

Memoirs  of  Life  and  Literature 

The  Limits  of  Pure  Democracy  $th  Edition 

Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine 

The  Reconstruction  of  Belief 

Novels 

The  Individualist  jrd  Edition 

The  Heart  of  Life  3rd  Edition 

A  Human  Document  gth  Edition 


ALGERNON      CHARLES      SWINBURNE 


MEMOIRS  OF 
LIFE  AND   LITERATURE 


•,»'*'     BY 

W.'  H.  MALLOCK 


OF 

'RECONSTRUCTION  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF"  ETC. 


ILLLUSTRATED 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

MCMXX 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 


Copyright.  1920.  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  September,  1920 

B-U 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

FAMILY  ANTECEDENTS I 

The  Mallocks  of  Cockington — Some  Old  Devonshire  Houses 
— A  Child's  Outlook  on  Life 


CHAPTER   II 

THE  Two  NATIONS 20 

The  Rural  Poor  of  Devonshire — The  Old  Landed  Families — 
An  Ecclesiastical  Magnate 

CHAPTER  III 

A  PRIVATE  TUTOR  DE  LUXE 39 

Early  Youth  Under  a  Private  Tutor — Poetry — Premoni- 
tions of  Modern  Liberalism 

CHAPTER   IV 

WINTER  SOCIETY  AT  TORQUAY 53 

Early  Acquaintance  with  Society — Byron's  Grandson,  Lord 
Houghton — A  Dandy  of  the  Old  School,  Carlyle — Lord 
Lytton,  and  Others — Memorable  Ladies 

CHAPTER   V 

EXPERIENCES  AT  OXFORD 68 

Early  Youth  at  Oxford — Acquaintance  with  Browning, 
Swinburne,  and  Ruskin — Dissipations  of  an  Undergraduate 
— The  Ferment  of  Intellectual  Revolution — The  New 
Republic 

V 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE  BASIS  OF  LONDON  SOCIETY 92 

Early  Experiences  of  London  Society — Society  Thirty  Years 
Ago  Relatively  Small — Arts  and  Accomplishments  Which 
Can  Flourish  in  Small  Societies  Only 

CHAPTER  VII 

VIGNETTES  OF  LONDON  LIFE 113 

Byron's  Grandson  and  Shelley's  Son — The  World  of  Balls — 
The  "Great  Houses,"  and  Their  New  Rivals — The  Latter 
Criticized  by  Some  Ladies  of  the  Old  Noblesse — Types  of 
More  Serious  Society — Lady  Marian  Alford  and  Others — 
Salons  Exclusive  and  Inclusive — A  Clash  of  Two  Rival 
Poets — The  Poet  Laureate — Auberon  Herbert  and  the  Sim- 
ple Life — Dean  Stanley — Whyte  Melville — "Ouida" — 
"Violet  Fane" — Catholic  Society — Lord  Bute — Banquet  to 
Cardinal  Manning — Difficulties  of  the  Memoir-writer — 

Lord  Wemyss  and  Lady  P Indiscretions  of  Augustus 

Hare — Routine  of  a  London  Day — The  Author's  Life  Out 
of  London 

CHAPTER   VIII 

SOCIETY  IN  COUNTRY  HOUSES 142 

A  Few  Country  Houses  of  Various  Types — Castles  and 
Manor  Houses  from  Cornwall  to  Sutherland 

CHAPTER   IX 

FROM  COUNTRY  HOUSES  TO  POLITICS 168 

First  Treatise  on  Politics — Radical  Propaganda — First  Visit 
to  the  Highlands — The  Author  Asked  to  Stand  for  a  Scotch 
Constituency 

CHAPTER  X 

A  FIVE  MONTHS'  INTERLUDE 194 

A  Venture  on  the  Riviera — Monte  Carlo — Life  in  a  Villa  at 
Beaulieu — A  Gambler's  Suicide — A  Gambler's  Funeral 
vi 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XI 

"THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGES" 209 

Intellectual  Apathy  of  Conservatives — A  Novel  Which 
Attempts  to  Harmonize  Socialist  Principles  with  Conserv- 
ative 

CHAPTER  XII 

CYPRUS,  FLORENCE,  HUNGARY 226 

A  Winter  in  Cyprus — Florence — Siena — Italian  Castles — 
Cannes — Some  Foreign  Royalties — Visit  During  the  Fol- 
lowing Spring  to  Princess  Batthyany  in  Hungary 

CHAPTER   XIII 

Two  WORKS  ON  SOCIAL  POLITICS 255 

The  Second  Lord  Lytton  at  Kneb worth — "Ouida" — Con- 
servative Torpor  as  to  Social  Politics — Two  Books:  Labor 
and  the  Popular  Welfare  and  Aristocracy  and  Evolution — 
Letters  from  Herbert  Spencer 

CHAPTER  XIV 

RELIGIOUS  PHILOSOPHY  AND  FICTION 270 

The  So-called  Anglican  Crisis — Doctrine  and  Doctrinal 
Disruption — Three  Novels:  A  Human  Document,  The  Heart 
of  Life,  The  Individualist — Three  Works  on  the  Philosophy 
of  Religion :  Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine,  The  Veil  of  the 
Temple,  The  Reconstruction  of  Belief — Passages  from  The 
Veil  of  the  Temple 

CHAPTER  XV 

FROM  THE  HIGHLANDS  TO  NEW  YORK 292 

Summer  on  the  Borders  of  Caithness — A  Two  Months' 
Yachting  Cruise — The  Orkneys  and  the  Outer  Hebrides — 
An  Unexpected  Political  Summons 
vii 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XVI 
POLITICS  AND  SOCIETY  IN  AMERICA 308 

Addresses  on  Socialism — 'Arrangements  for  Their  Delivery 
— American  Society  in  Long  Island  and  New  York — 
Harvard — Prof.  William  James — President  Roosevelt — 
Chicago — Second  Stay  in  New  York — New  York  to  Brit- 
tany— A  Critical  Examination  of  Socialism — Propaganda  in 
England 

CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  AUTHOR'S  WORKS  SUMMARIZED 335 

A  Boy's  Conservatism — Poetic  Ambitions — The  Philosophy 
of  Religious  Belief — The  Philosophy  of  Industrial  Con- 
1         servatism — Intellectual    Torpor    of    Conservatives — Final 
Treatises  and  Fiction 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
LITERATURE  AND  ACTION 343 

Literature  as  Speech  Made  Permanent — All  Written  Speech 
Not  Literature — The  Essence  of  Literature  for  Its  Own  Sake 
— Prose  as  a  Fine  Art — Some  Interesting  Aspects  of  Litera- 
ture as  an  End  in  Itself — Their  Comparative  Triviality — No 
Literature  Great  Which  Is  Not  More  Than  Literature — 
Literature  as  a  Vehicle  of  Religion — Lucretius — The  Re- 
construction of  Belief 

INDEX 373 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ALGERNON  CHARLES   SWINBURNE Prontispkct 

ROBERT   BROWNING          facing  p.     30 

THOMAS  CARLYLE "            64 

JOHN   RUSKIN "            86 

OUIDA "          126 

CARDINAL   MANNING "          134 

HERBERT   SPENCER "          266 

THEODORE   ROOSEVELT         "          318 


MEMOIRS   OF   LIFE 
AND    LITERATURE 


MEMOIRS    OF    LIFE 
AND    LITERATURE 


CHAPTER  I 

FAMILY   ANTECEDENTS 

The  Mallocks  of  Cockington — Some  Old  Devonshire  Houses — A 
Child's  Outlook  on  Life 

""%      ^EMOIRS"  is  a  word  which,  as  commonly 
|\/1     used,    includes   books   of   very   various 
JL  T  JL  kinds,  ranging  from  St.  Augustine's  Con- 
fessions  to   the   gossip   of    Lady    Dorothy    Nevill. 
Such  books,  however,  have  all  one  family  likeness. 
They  all  of  them  represent  life  as  seen  by  the  writers 
from  a  personal  point  of  view;  and  in  this  sense  it  is 
to  the  family  of  Memoirs  that  the  present  book 
belongs. 

But  the  incidents  or  aspects  of  life  which  a  book  of 
memoirs  describes  represent  something  more  than 
themselves.  Whether  the  writer  is  conscious  of  the 
fact  or  no,  they  represent  a  circle  of  circumstances, , 
general  as  well  as  private,  to  which  his  individual 
character  reacts;  and  his  reactions,  as  he  records 
them,  may  in  this  way  acquire  a  meaning  and  unity 
which  have  their  origin  in  the  age — in  the  general 
conditions  and  movements  which  his  personal  recol- 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

lections  cover — rather  than  in  any  qualities  or  ad- 
ventures which  happen  to  be  exclusively  his  own. 
Thus  if  any  writer  attempts  to  do  what  I  have  done 
myself — namely,  to  examine  or  depict  in  books  of 
widely  different  kinds  such  aspects  and  problems  of 
life — social,  philosophical,  religious,  and  economic — • 
as  have  in  turn  engrossed  his  special  attention,  he 
may  venture  to  hope  that  a  memoir  of  his  own 
activities  will  be  taken  as  representing  an  age, 
rather  than  a  personal  story,  his  personal  story 
being  little  more  than  a  variant  of  one  which  many 
readers  will  recognize  as  common  to  themselves 
and  him. 

Now  for  all  reflecting  persons  whose  childhood 
reaches  back  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  most  remarkable  feature  of  the  period 
which  constitutes  the  age  for  themselves  cannot 
fail  to  be  a  sequence  of  remarkable  and  momentous 
changes — changes  alike  in  the  domains  of  science, 
religion,  and  society;  and  if  any  one  of  such  persons 
should  be  asked,  "Changes  from  what?"  his  answer 
will  be,  if  he  knows  how  to  express  himself,  ' '  Changes 
from  the  things  presented  to  him  by  his  first  re- 
membered experiences,  and  by  him  taken  for  granted, ' ' 
such  as  the  teaching,  religious  or  otherwise,  received 
by  him,  and  the  general  constitution  of  society  as 
revealed  to  him  by  his  own  observation  and  the 
ways  and  conversation  of  his  elders.  These  are  the 
things  which  provide  the  child's  life  with  its  starting 
pointj  and  these  are  determined  by  the  facts  of 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

family  tradition  and  parentage.  It  is,  therefore, 
with  a  description  of  such  family  facts  that  the  au- 
thor of  a  memoir  like  the  present  ought  properly  to 
begin. 

The  Mallocks,  who  have  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years  been  settled  at  Cockington  Court,  near  to 
what  is  now  Torquay,  descend  from  a  William 
Malet,  Mallek,  or  Mallacke,  who  was,  about  the 
year  1400,  possessed  of  estates  lying  between  Lyme 
and  Axmouth.  This  individual,  according  to  the 
genealogists  of  the  Heralds'  College,  was  a  younger 
son  of  Sir  Baldwyn  Malet  of  Enmore,  in  the  county 
of  Dorset.  His  descendants,  at  all  events,  from  this 
time  onward  became  connected  by  marriage  with 
such  well-known  West  Country  families  as  the  Pynes, 
the  Drakes,  the  Churchills,  the  Yonges  of  Colyton, 
the  Willoughbys  of  Payhembury,  the  Trevelyans,  the 
Tuckfields  (subsequently  Hippesleys),  the  Strodes 
of  Newnham,  the  Aclands,  the  Champernownes, 
and  the  Bullers.  Between  the  reigns  of  Henry  VII 
and  Elizabeth  they  provided  successive  Parliaments 
with  members  for  Lyme  and  Poole.  One  of  them, 
Roger,  during  the  reign  of  the  latter  sovereign, 
found  his  way  to  Exeter,  where,  as  a  banker  or 
"goldsmith,"  he  laid  the  foundations  of  what  was 
then  a  very  great  fortune,  and  built  himself  a  large 
town  house,  of  which  one  room  is  still  intact,  with 
the  queen's  arms  and  his  own  juxtaposed  on  the 
paneling.  The  fortune  accumulated  by  him  was, 
during  the  next  two  reigns,  notably  increased  by  a 

3 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

second  Roger,  his  son,  in  partnership  with  Sir  Fer- 
dinando  Gorges,  military  governor  of  Plymouth, 
who  had  somehow  become  possessed  of  immense 
territories  in  Maine,  and  was  a  prominent  figure  in 
the  history  of  English  trade  with  America. 

The  second  Roger,  about  the  year  1640,  purchased 
the  Cockington  property  from  Sir  Henry  Gary,  a 
Cavalier,  who  appears  to  have  been  a  typical  sufferer 
from  his  devotion  to  the  royal  cause.  Roger  Mallock 
was,  indeed,  so  far  Royalist  himself  that  he  entered 
a  protest  against  the  execution  of  Charles;  but 
both  he  and  his  relatives  also  were  evidently  in 
sympathy  otherwise  with  the  Parliamentary  party; 
for,  during  the  Protectorate,  Elizabeth  Mallock,  his 
cousin,  married  Lord  Blayney,  an  Irishman,  who 
was  personally  attached  to  Cromwell;  while  Rawlin 
Mallock,  this  second  Roger's  son  (who  had  married 
Susannah,  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges's  daughter),  was 
Whig  member  for  Totnes,  twice  Whig  member  for 
Ashburton,  and  was  one  of  the  small  group  of  peers 
and  country  gentlemen  who  -welcomed  William  of 
Orange  when  he  disembarked  at  Brixham.  Raw- 
lin's  heir  was  a  boy — beautiful,  as  a  picture  of  him 
in  the  guise  of  a  little  Cavalier  shows — who  died  a 
minor  in  the  year  1699,  but  who,  during  his  brief 
life,  as  a  contemporary  chronicler  mentions,  had 
distinguished  himself  byj  an  accomplishment  ex- 
tremely rare  among  the  young  country  gentlemen 
of  his  own  day — indeed,  we  may  add  of  our  own — 
that  is  to  day,  a  precocious  knowledge  of  Hebrew. 

4 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  young  scholar  was  succeeded  by  a  third 
Rawlin,  his  cousin,  a  personage  of  a  very  different 
type,  who,  in  concert  with  his  next-door  neighbor, 
Mr.  Gary  of  Torre  Abbey,  added  to  the  pursuits  of 
a  Squire  Western  the  enterprise  of  a  smuggler  in  a 
big  way  of  business.  He  was,  moreover,  a  patron 
of  the  turf,  having  a  large  stud  farm  on  Dartmoor, 
with  results  which  would  have  been  disastrous  for 
himself  if  the  wounds  inflicted  by  the  world  had  not 
been  healed  through  his  connection  with  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  He  was  fortunately  the  patron  of 
no  less  than  sixteen  livings,  or  cures  of  souls,  by  the 
gradual  sale  of  most  of  which  he  managed  to  meet, 
as  a  Christian  should  do,  the  claims  of  his  lay 
creditors.  Of  the  bottles  of  port  with  which  he 
stocked  the  Cockington  cellars  two,  bearing  the  date 
of  1745,  still  remain — or  till  lately  remained — un- 
opened. Through  the  successor  of  this  typical 
Georgian  the  property  passed  to  my  grandfather,  of 
whom  my  father  was  a  younger  son. 

Like  many  other  younger  sons,  my  father,  to  use 
a  pious  phrase,  suffered  himself  to  be  "put  into  the 
Church,"  where  two  of  the  livings  still  owned  by 
his  family  awaited  him.  These,  to  his  temporal 
advantage,  he  presently  exchanged  for  another. 
His  health,  however,  since  I  can  remember  him, 
never  permitted  him  to  exert  himself  in  the  perform- 
ance of  divine  service.  Indeed,  his  ecclesiastical  in- 
terests were  architectural  rather  than  pastoral.  He 
accordingly,  after  a  brief  acquaintance  with  his  new 
2  5 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

parishioners,  committed  them  to  the  spiritual  care 
of  a  stalwart  and  well-born  curate,  and  bought  a 
picturesque  retreat  about  ten  or  twelve  miles  away, 
embowered  in  ivy,  and  overlooking  the  river  Exe, 
where  he  spent  his  time  in  enlarging  the  house  and 
gardens,  and  in  planting  slopes  and  terraces,  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  length,  with  what  were  then 
very  rare  trees.  He  was  subsequently  given  for  life 
the  use  of  another  house,  Denbury  Manor,  of  which 
I  shall  speak  presently,  which  I  myself  much  pre- 
ferred, and  with  which  my  own  early  recollections 
are  much  more  closely  associated. 

My  mother  was  a  daughter  of  the  Ven.  Arch- 
deacon Froude,  and  sister  of  three  distinguished 
brothers — Hurrell  Froude,  prominent  as  a  leader  of 
the  Tractarian  movement,  Antony  Froude  the  his- 
torian, and  William  Froude,  who,  though  his  name  is 
less  generally  known,  exercised,  as  will  be  shown 
presently,  an  influence  on  public  affairs  greater  than 
that  of  many  cabinet  ministers.  The  Archdeacon  of 
Totnes,  their  father,  was  a  Churchman  of  a  type 
now  extinct  as  the  dodo.  Born  in  the  early  part 
of  the  reign  of  George  III,  and  inheriting  a  consid- 
erable fortune,  he  was  in  his  youth  addicted  to 
pursuits  a  proficiency  in  which  is  now  regarded  by 
no  one  as  absolutely  essential  to  a  fitness  for  Holy 
Orders.  He  was  famous  for  his  horses,  and  also 
for  his  feats  of  horsemanship,  one  of  these  being  the 
jumping  of  a  five-barred  gate  without  losing  either 
of  two  guinea  pieces  which  were  placed  at  starting 

6 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

between  his  knees  and  the  saddle.  To  the  accom- 
plishments of  an  equestrian  he  added  those  of  a 
dilettante.  He  was  an  architect,  a  collector  of  pic- 
tures, a  herald  and  archaeologist,  and  also  (as  Ruskin 
declared,  to  whom  some  of  his  drawings  were  ex- 
hibited) an  artist  whose  genius  was  all  but  that  of 
a  master.  Like  other  young  men  of  fortune,  he 
made  what  was  then  called  the  "grand  tour  of 
Europe,"  his  sketchbooks  showing  that  he  traveled 
as  far  as  Corfu,  and  subsequently,  when  he  settled 
for  life  as  the  vicar  of  Dartington  parish,  he  was  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  most  enlightened  country  gentle- 
men of  the  district,  active  in  improving  the  roads, 
which,  till  his  time,  were  abominable,  and  in  bring- 
ing poachers  to  punishment  if  not  to  repentance. 

Within  a  short  walk  of  the  parsonage,  over  the 
brow  of  a  wooded  hill,  is  another  house,  which  in 
the  scenery  of  my  childhood  was  an  object  no  less 
familiar — Dartington  Hall,  the  home  of  the  Cham- 
pernowne  family,  with  which,  by  marriage  and 
otherwise,  my  father's  was  very  closely  connected. 
Yet  another  house — it  has  been  mentioned  already 
as  associated  .with  my  childhood  also — is  Denbury 
Manor,  with  its  stucco  chimneys  and  pinnacles, 
its  distance  from  Dartington  being  something  like 
eight  miles.  These  four  houses — Denbury  Manor, 
Dartington  Parsonage,  Dartington  Hall,  and  Cock- 
ington  Court — all  lying  within  a  circle  of  some 
twelve  miles  in  diameter,  represent,  together  with 
their  adjuncts,  the  material  aspects  of  the  life  with 

7 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which  I  was  first  familiar.     Let  me  give  a  brief 
sketch  of  each,  taking  Denbury  first. 

Denbury  Manor  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  converted  and  enlarged  into  a  dower- 
house  for  my  mother's  grandmother,  but  was  oc- 
cupied when  first  I  knew  it  by  my  great-aunt,  her 
daughter,  an  old  Miss  Margaret  Froude.  To  judge 
from  a  portrait  done  of  her  in  her  youth  by  Down- 
man,  she  must  have  been  then  a  very  engaging 
ingenue;  but  when  I  remember  her  she  looked  a 
hundred  and  fifty.  She  was,  indeed,  when  she  died 
very  nearly  a  hundred,  and  her  house  and  its  sur- 
roundings now  figure  in  my  recollections  as  things 
of  the  eighteenth  century  which,  preserved  in  all 
their  freshness,  had  hardly  been  touched  by  the 
years  which  by  that  time  had  followed  it.  The 
house,  which  was  of  considerable  antiquity,  had 
been,  for  my  great-grandmother's  benefit,  modern- 
ized or  Elizabethanized  under  the  influence  of  Horace 
Walpole  and  Wyat.  It  was  backed  by  a  rookery 
of  old  and  enormous  elms.  It  was  approached  on 
one  side  by  a  fine  avenue  of  limes,  and  was  other- 
wise surrounded  by  gardens  with  gray  walls  or 
secretive  laurel  hedges.  Here  was  a  water  tank 
in  the  form  of  a  Strawberry  Hill  chapel.  Here  was  a 
greenhouse  unaltered  since  the  days  of  George  II. 
Everywhere,  though  everything  was  antique,  there 
were  signs  of  punctilious  care,  and  morning  by 
morning  a  bevy  of  female  villagers  would  be  raking 
the  gravel  paths  and  turning  them  into  weedless 

8 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

silver.  The  front  door,  heavy  with  nails,  would  be 
opened  by  an  aged  footman,  his  cheeks  pink  like  an 
apple,  and  his  white  silk  stockings  and  his  livery 
always  faultless.  Within  were  old  Turkey  carpets, 
glossy,  but  not  worn  with  use,  heavy  Chippendale 
chairs,  great  Delf  jugs  with  the  monogram  of  George 
II  on  them,  a  profusion  of  Oriental  china,  and  end- 
less bowls  of  potpourri.  On  the  shelves  of  whatnots 
were  books  of  long-forgotten  eighteenth-century 
plays.  In  one  of  the  sitting  rooms  was  a  magnificent 
portrait  by  Reynolds  of  Miss  Froude's  mother.  It 
represented  her  playing  on  a  guitar,  and  on  a  table 
beneath  it  reposed  the  guitar  itself.  Here  and  there 
lay  one  of  the  ivory  hands  with  which  powdered 
ladies  once  condescended  to  scratch  themselves. 
There  were  shining  inkstands  whose  drawers  were 
still  stocked  with  the  wafers  used  for  sealing  letters 
in  the  days  of  Lydia  Languish.  In  another  room, 
called  "the  little  parlor,"  and  commonly  used  for 
breakfast,  an  old  gentleman  by  Opie  smiled  from 
one  of  the  walls,  and  saw  one  thing  only  which  he 
might  have  seen  there  in  his  boyhood — a  small  piano 
by  Broadwood,  always  fastidiously  polished,  as  if 
it  ha'd  just  come  from  the  shop,  and  bearing  the 
date  of  1780.  Many  houses  abound  in  similar  fur- 
nishings. The  characteristic  of  Denbury  was  that 
it  contained  nothing  else.  These  things  were  there, 
not  as  survivals  of  the  past,  but  as  parts  of  a  past 
which  for  the  inmates  had  never  ceased  to  be  the 
present.  They  were  there  as  the  natural  appur- 

9 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tenances  of  a  lady  who,  so  far  as  I  knew,  had  never 
been  near  a  railway  till  a  special  train  was  run  to 
convey  mourners  to  her  funeral. 

Miss  Froude  matched  her  surroundings.  During 
her  later  years  she  was  never  visible  till  midday,  by 
which  time  she  would,  in  an  upstairs  drawing  room, 
be  found  occupying  a  cushionless  chair  at  a  large 
central  table,  with  a  glass  of  port  at  her  right  hand 
and  a  volume  of  sermons  at  her  left.  On  either  side 
of  her  stood  a  faithful  attendant,  one  being  a  con- 
fidential maid,  the  other  a  Miss  Drake — an  old, 
mittened  companion,  hardly  younger  in  appearance 
than  herself — both  of  whom  watched  her  with  eyes 
of  solicitous  reverence,  and  seemed  always  ready  to 
collapse  into  quasi-religious  curtsies.  Here  she 
would  receive  such  visitors  as  happened  to  be  stay- 
ing in  the  house,  and  subsequently  reverential  vil- 
lagers, who  appealed  to  her  for  aid  or  sympathy. 

Dartington  Parsonage  was  in  one  sense  more 
modern  than  Denbury,  having  been  for  the  most 
part  constructed  by  the  Archdeacon  himself.  Origi- 
nally a  diminutive  dwelling — a  relic  of  medieval  times 
— he  enlarged  it  to  the  dimensions  of  a  substantial 
country  house,  surrounding  a  court,  and  connected 
with  a  medley  of  outbuildings — servants'  offices, 
stables,  barns,  and  coach  houses,  one  of  these  last 
containing  as  a  solitary  recluse  a  high-hung  yellow 
chariot,  lined  with  yellow  morocco,  in  which  the 
Archdeacon  had  been  wont  to  travel  before  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  and  in  which  his  grandchildren 

10 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

were  never  weary  of  swinging  themselves.  If  the 
parsonage  and  its  appurtenances  can  in  any  sense 
be  called  modern,  they  represented  ideas  and  con- 
ditions which  are  far  enough  away  now.  There  was 
nothing  about  them  more  modern  than  the  early 
days  of  Miss  Austen.  The  dining-room  sideboard, 
with  its  long  row  of  knife  boxes,  whose  sloping  lids 
when  lifted  showed  a  glimmering  of  silver  handles, 
would  have  seemed  familiar  to  Mr.  Knightly,  Mr. 
Woodhouse,  and  Sir  Thomas  Bertram.  Opposite 
the  dining  room  was  a  library,  very  carefully  kept, 
the  contents  of  which  were  a  curious  mixture. 
Besides  great  folio  editions  of  the  classics  and  the 
Christian  Fathers,  were  collections  of  the  ephemeral 
literature  of  the  days  of  Charles  II,  notable  among 
which  were  lampoons  on  Nell  Gwyn  and  her  royal 
lover — works  which  the  Archdeacon  certainly  never 
bought,  and  which  must  have  come  to  him  through 
his  mother  from  the  Cavalier  family  of  Copplestone. 
In  the  hall  was  a  marble  table  bearing  a  bust  of 
Demosthenes.  In  the  drawing-room  were  water- 
color  drawings  by  artists  such  as  Prout  and  Stans- 
field;  a  group  of  Dutch  paintings,  including  a  fine 
Van  Ostade;  sofas,  on  which  Miss  Austen  might 
have  sat  by  the  Prince  Regent;  and  scrap-work 
screens  on  which  faded  portraits  and  landscapes 
were  half  eclipsed  by  quotations  from  Elegant  Ex- 
tracts. From  the  drawing-room  windows,  in  my 
mother's  earlier  days,  might  often  have  been  seen 
the  figure  of  an  old  head  gardener  and  factotum, 

ii 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

George  Diggins  by  name,  bending  over  beds  of 
geraniums,  who  was  born  in  the  reign  of  George  II, 
who  had  passed  his  youth  as  a  charcoal  burner  in 
woods  not  far  from  Ugbrooke,  the  seat  of  the  Catho- 
lic Cliffords,  and  who  often  recounted  how,  on  mys- 
terious nights,  "four  horses  and  a  coach,  with  the 
old  Lord  Clifford  inside  it,  would  come  tumbling 
out  of  the  woods  into  the  road  like  so  many  packs 
of  wool." 

Dartington  Hall — very  well  known  to  architects 
as  the  work  of  John  Holland,  Duke  of  Exeter,  in 
the  reign  of  Richard  II — passed  by  exchange  to  the 
Champernownes  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  and 
was  originally  an  enormous  structure,  inclosing  two 
quadrangles.  A  large  part  of  it,  as  may  be  seen 
from  old  engravings,  was  falling  into  ruins  in  the 
days  of  George  II,  but  its  principal  feature  was 
intact  till  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
This  was  one  of  the  finest  baronial  halls  in  England, 
seventy  feet  by  forty,  with  a  roof  resembling  that 
of  the  great  hall  at  Westminster.  The  roof,  how- 
ever, at  that  time  showing  signs  of  impending  col- 
lapse, it  was  taken  down  by  my  grandfather  in  the 
year  1810,  and  only  the  bare  walls  and  the  pointed 
windows  remain.  The  inhabited  portion,  however, 
is  still  of  considerable  extent,  one  of  its  frontages — • 
two  hundred  and  thirty  feet  in  length — abutting  so 
closely  on  a  churchyard  that  the  dead  need  hardly 
turn  in  their  graves  to  peer  in  through  the  lower 
windows  at  faded  wall-papers,  bedroom  doors,  and 

12 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

endless  yards  of  carpet.  The  interior,  as  I  remember 
it,  did  not  differ  from  that  of  many  old  country 
houses.  There  were  one  or  two  great  rooms,  a  mul- 
titude of  family  portraits,  and  landscapes,  marbles 
and  coins  brought  from  Italy  by  a  traveled  and 
dilettante  ancestor.  It  was  a  great  rendezvous  for 
numerous  Buller  relations.  It  was,  as  was  the  par- 
sonage also,  a  nest  of  old  domestics,  all  born  in  the 
parish,  and  it  included  among  its  other  inmates 
a  ghost,  who  was  called  "the  Countess,"  and  who 
took  from  time  to  time  alarming  strolls  along  the 
passages. 

It  remains  to  add  a  word  or  two  with  regard  to 
Cockington  Court.  At  the  time  when  my  father 
was  born  in  it,  it  was  the  heart  of  a  neighborhood 
remotely  and  even  primitively  rural,  and  fifty  years 
later,  when  I  can  first  remember  it,  its  immediate 
surroundings  were  unchanged.  A  few  miles  away 
the  modern  world  had,  indeed,  begun  to  assert 
itself  in  the  multiplying  villas  of  Torquay,  but  on 
the  Cockington  property,  which  includes  the  dis- 
trict of  Chelston,  few  dwellings  existed  which  had 
not  been  there  in  the  days  of  Charles  II.  Torquay, 
which  at  the  beginning  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  was 
nothing  more  than  a  cluster  of  fishermen's  huts, 
owed  its  rise  to  the  presence  of  the  British  fleet  in 
Torbay,  and  the  need  of  accommodation  on  shore 
for  officers'  wives  and  families.  My  grandfather 
built  two  houses,  Livermead  House  and  Livermead 
Cottage,  in  answer  to  this  demand.  Both  were  for 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

personal  friends,  one  of  them  being  the  first  Lord 
St.  Vincent,  the  other  being  Sir  John  Colbourne, 
afterward  Lord  Seaton.  But  though  elaborate  plans 
were  subsequently  put  before  him  for  turning  the 
surrounding  slopes  into  a  pretentious  and  sym- 
metrical watering  place,  the  construction  of  no  new 
residence  was  permitted  by  himself  or  his  successor 
till  somewhere  about  the  year  1865,  when  a  building 
lease  was  granted  by  the  latter  to  one  of  his  own 
connections. 

Meanwhile,  on  adjacent  properties,  belonging  to 
the  Palks  and  Carys,  Torquay  had  been  developing 
into  what  became  for  a  time  the  most  famous  and 
fashionable  of  the  winter  resorts  of  England,  Cock- 
ington  still  remaining  a  quiet  and  undisturbed 
Arcadia. 

But  the  real  or  nominal  progress  of  five-and-forty 
years  has  brought  about  changes  which  my  grand- 
father, blind  to  his  own  interests,  resisted.  To-day, 
as  the  train,  having  passed  the  station  of  Torre,  pro- 
ceeds toward  that  of  Paignton,  the  traveler  sees, 
looking  inland  at  the  Cockington  and  Chelston 
slopes,  a  throng  of  villas  intermixed  with  the  relics 
of  ancient  hedgerows.  If,  alighting  at  Torquay 
station,  he  mounts  the  hill  above  it  by  what  in  my 
childhood  was  a  brambled  and  furtive  lane,  he  will 
find  on  either  side  of  him  villas  and  villa  gardens, 
till  at  length  he  is  brought  to  a  ridge  overlooking 
a  secluded  valley.  For  some  distance  villas  will 
still  obscure  his  view,  but  presently  these  end. 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Below  him  he  will  see  steep  fields  descending  into 
a  quiet  hollow,  the  opposite  slopes  being  covered 
or  crowned  with  woods,  and  against  them  he  will 
see  smoke  wreaths  straying  upward  from  undis- 
cerned  chimneys.  A  little  farther  on,  the  road, 
now  wholly  rural,  dips  downward,  and  Cockington 
village  reveals  itself,  not  substantially  changed,  with 
its  thatch  and  its  red  mud  walls,  from  what  it  had 
been  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago.  Its  most 
prominent  feature  is  the  blacksmith's  forge,  which, 
unaltered  except  for  repairs,  is  of  much  greater 
antiquity.  It  is  said  that,  as  a  contrast  between 
the  old  world  and  the  new,  few  scenes  in  England 
have  been  more  often  photographed  than  this.  Pass- 
ing the  blacksmith's  forge,  and  mounting  under  the 
shade  of  trees,  the  road  leads  to  a  lodge,  the  grounds 
of  Cockington  Court,  and  the  church  which  very 
nearly  touches  it. 

The  house  as  it  now  stands — a  familiar  object  to 
tourists — is  merely  a  portion  of  what  once  was  a 
larger  structure.  It  was  partly  built  by  the  Carys 
in  the  year  of  the  Spanish  Armada.  Roger  Mallock 
reconstructed  it  some  seventy  years  later.  It  formed 
in  his  days,  and  up  to  those  of  my  grandfather,  one 
side  of  a  square,  entered  between  two  towers,  and 
was  surrounded  by  a  deer  park  of  four  or  five  hun- 
dred acres.  Toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, however,  agricultural  land  then  rising  in  value, 
my  grandfather,  who  threw  away  one  fortune  by 
refusing  to  have  a  town  on  his  property,  had  been 

IS 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

shrewd  enough  to  get  rid  of  his  deer,  and  turned 
most  of  his  parkland  into  farms.  He  also  destroyed 
the  forecourt  of  his  house  and  a  range  of  antique 
offices,  considerably  reducing  at  the  same  time  the 
size  of  the  main  building  by  depriving  it  of  its  top 
story  and  substituting  a  dwarfish  parapet  for  what 
had  once  been  its  eight  gables.  The  interior  suffered 
at  his  hands  to  an  even  greater  extent.  A  hall  with 
a  minstrels'  gallery  was  turned  by  him  into  several 
rooms  as  commonplace  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine. 
Indeed  little  of  special  interest  survived  him  but 
some  fine  Italian  ceilings,  the  most  curious  of  which 
exists  no  longer,  a  paneled  dining-room  of  the  reign 
of  William  and  Mary,  a  number  of  portraits  dating 
from  the  days  of  James  I  onward,  and  a  wall  paper 
representing  life-size  savages  under  palm  trees,  which 
was  part  of  the  plunder  of  a  French  vessel  during 
the  time  of  the  Napoleonic  wars.  To  this  meager 
list,  however,  up  to  my  father's  time  might  have 
been  added  another  item  of  a  more  eloquent  and 
more  unusual  kind — namely,  a  gilded  coach,  in 
which,  according  to  village  tradition,  an  old  Madam 
Mallock  (as  she  was  called)  used  to  be  dragged  by 
six  horses  along  the  execrable  lanes  of  the  neighbor- 
hood for  her  daily  airing  in  the  early  part  of  the 
reign  of  George  III.  It  is  a  great  pity  that,  of  all 
the  appliances  of  life,  carriages  are  those  which  are 
least  frequently  preserved.  The  reason  doubtless 
is  that  they  take  up  a  good  deal  of  room,  and  be- 
come absurdly  old-fashioned  long  before  they  be- 

16 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

come  interesting.  The  old  coach  of  which  I  speak 
was  bequeathed,  with  other  heirlooms,  to  my  father, 
who,  I  may  say  without  filial  impiety,  proved 
altogether  unworthy  of  it.  He  left  it  in  a  shed 
near  a  pond,  into  which  it  subsequently  fell,  its 
disjecta  membra  being  presumably  at  the  bottom  still. 

But  whatever  the  house  may  have  lost  in  the  way 
of  hereditary  contents,  the  church  contained,  in  my 
childhood,  other  symbols  of  the  past — they  have 
now  likewise  vanished — which  spoke  of  "the  family" 
rather  than  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  faith. 
The  family  shrouded  its  devotions,  and  sometimes 
its  slumbers,  in  a  pew  which  was  furnished  with  a 
large  fireplace,  and  eclipsed  with  its  towering  walls 
something  like  half  the  altar.  All  the  panels  of  the 
western  gallery  were  emblazoned  with  coats  of 
arms  and  quarterings,  and  all  the  available  wall 
space  was  dark  with  family  hatchments.  One  after- 
noon, some  five-and-forty  years  ago,  a  daughter  of 
the  house,  who  happened  to  be  alone  indoors,  was 
alarmed  by  a  summons  to  show  herself  and  receive 
the  Queen  of  Holland,  who  was  then  staying  at 
Torquay,  and  who  wished  to  inspect  an  old  English 
house  and  its  appurtenances.  My  cousin,  who  took 
her  into  the  church,  and  who  was  somewhat  con- 
fused by  the  presence  of  so  august  a  visitor,  ex- 
plained the  hatchments,  with  regard  to  which  the 
queen  questioned  her,  by  saying  that  one  was  put  up 
whenever  a  member  of  the  Mallock  family  married. 

As    for    myself,    these    solemn    heraldic    objects 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

vaguely  imbued  me  with  a  sense,  of  which  I  took 
long  in  divesting  myself,  that  my  own  family  was 
one  of  the  most  important  and  permanent  institu- 
tions of  the  country.  They  were  otherwise  associated 
in  my  memory  with  a  long  succession  of  Christmases, 
when  holly  berries  enlivened  their  frames  and  peeped 
over  the  walls  of  the  pew  where  my  elders  drowsed, 
and  my  coevals  were  sustained  during  the  sermon 
by  visions  of  the  plum  pudding  and  crackers  which 
would  reward  them  in  a  near  hereafter.  I  can  still 
remember  how,  before  these  joys  began,  we  would 
group  ourselves  in  the  dining-room  windows,  peer- 
ing at  distant  woods,  in  which  keepers  still  set  man 
traps,  or  watching  the  village  schoolchildren  on  their 
way  from  church  homeward,  making  with  their 
crimson  cloaks  a  streak  of  color  as  they  followed 
one  another  across  slopes  of  snow. 

The  feelings  excited  by  a  landscape  such  as  this 
bore  a  subtle  resemblance  to  those  produced  in  my- 
self by  the  heraldries  which  thronged  the  church. 
From  the  windows,  indeed,  of  all  the  houses  of  which 
I  have  just  been  speaking  the  prospect  was  morally, 
if  not  visually,  the  same.  They  all  looked  out,  as 
though  it  were  the  unquestioned  order  of  things,  on 
wooded  seclusions  pricked  by  manorial  chimneys 
or  on  lodges  and  gray  park  walls,  while  somewhere 
beyond  these  last  lurked  the  thatch  of  contented 
cottages,  at  the  doors  of  which,  when  a  member  of 
"the  family"  passed,  women  and  children  would 
curtsy  and  men  touch  their  forelocks. 

18 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Here  some  persons  may  be  tempted  to  interpose 
the  remark  that  the  aspect  which  things  thus  wore 
for  ourselves  was  in  one  respect  quite  illusory. 
They  may  say  that  the  idyllic  contentment  which 
we  thus  attributed  to  the  cottagers  was  the  very 
reverse  of  the  truth,  and  that  the  thatch  of  their 
dwellings,  however  pleasing  to  the  eye,  really 
shrouded  a  misery  to  which  history  shows  few  paral- 
lels. Such  an  objection,  even  if  correct,  would, 
however,  be  here  irrelevant;  for  I  am  dealing  now 
not  with  things  as  they  actually  were,  but  merely 
with  the  impressions  produced  by  them  on  childish 
minds,  and  more  particularly  on  my  own.  Never- 
theless, the  objection  in  itself  is  of  quite  sufficient 
importance  to  call,  even  here,  for  some  incidental 
attention;  and  how  far,  in  this  respect,  our  impres- 
sions were  true  or  false  will  appear  in  the  following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   TWO    NATIONS 

The  Rural  Poor  of  Devonshire — The  Old  Landed  Families — An 
Ecclesiastical  Magnate 

OUR  impressions  of  the  cottagers,  to  which 
I  have  just  alluded — and  for  us  the  cot- 
tagers represented  the  people  of  England 
generally — were  not,  it  is  true,  derived  from  our  own 
scientific  investigations;  they  were  derived  from  the 
conversation  of  our  elders.  But  the  knowledge 
which  these  elders  possessed  as  to  the  ways,  the 
temper,  and  the  conditions  of  the  rural  poor  was 
intimate,  and  was  constantly  illustrated  by  anec- 
dotes, to  which  we  as  children  were  never  weary  of 
listening.  The  descriptions  so  often  given  of  the 
misery  of  the  agricultural  laborers  and  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  ruling  class  from  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  up  to  the  abolition  of  the  Corn 
Laws  may  be  correct  as  applied  to  certain  parts  of 
the  kingdom;  but,  in  the  case  of  Devonshire  at  all 
events,  they  are,  it  would  appear,  very  far  from  the 
truth.  The  period  more  particularly  in  question, 
including  the  decade  known  as  "the  hungry  'forties," 
is  precisely  the  period  with  which  these  elders  of 
ours  were  most  closely  acquainted;  and,  though  we 
occasionally  heard  of  disturbances  called  "bread 

20 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

riots"  as  having  occurred  in  Exeter  and  Plymouth, 
no  hint  reached  us  of  such  outbreaks  having  ever 
taken  place  in  the  country,  or  of  any  distress  or 
temper  which  was  calculated  to  provoke  protests 
of  any  sort  or  kind  against  the  established  order. 
On  the  contrary,  between  the  rural  poor  and  the 
old-fashioned  landed  aristocracy,  lay  and  clerical 
alike,  the  relations  were  not  only  amicable,  but 
very  often  confidential  also. 

This  fact  may  be  illustrated  by  the  case  of  old 
Miss  Froude,  the  ' '  Lady  Bountiful "  of  her  immediate 
neighborhood,  who  was  constantly  appealed  to  by 
its  inhabitants,  not  only  for  material  aid,  but  for 
religious  guidance  as  well,  and  appreciation  of  their 
religious  experiences.  Thus  on  one  occasion  an  old 
woman  was  ushered  into  Miss  Froude's  presence 
who  had  evidently  some  fact  of  great  importance  to 
communicate.  The  fact  turned  out  to  be  this: 
that  she  had  spent  the  whole  of  the  previous  night 
in  a  trance,  during  which  she  had  ascended  to  heaven, 
and  been  let  in  by  "a  angel."  "Well,"  said  Miss 
Froude,  "and  did  they  ask  you  your  name?"  "No, 
ma'am,  not  my  name,"  was  the  answer;  "they  only 
asked  me  my  parish."  "And  do  you,"  Miss  Froude 
continued,  "remember  what  the  angel's  name  was?" 
The  old  woman  seemed  doubtful.  "Do  you  think," 
said  Miss  Froude,  "it  was  Gabriel?"  "Iss,  fay 
(yes,  i'  faith),"  said  the  old  woman.  "Sure  enough 
'twas  Gaburl."  "And  did  you,"  said  Miss  Froude, 

3  21 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

finally,  "see  anybody  in  heaven  whom  you  knew?" 
The  old  woman  hesitated,  but  caught  herself  up  in 
time,  and  solemnly  said,  "I  seed  you,  ma'am." 

Had  all  Miss  Froude's  dependents  been  of  an 
equally  communicative  disposition,  there  would  in- 
x  deed  in  the  confessions  of  two  of  them  have  been 
matter  of  a  less  peaceful  character.  It  had  for  some 
time  been  whispered  among  her  indoor  servants — 
this  is  before  I  can  remember — that  horses,  after 
days  of  idleness  so  far  as  carriage  work  was  con- 
cerned, would  on  certain  mornings  be  found  covered 
with  sweat,  and  other  signs  of  mysteriously  hard 
usage.  It  was  ultimately  found  out  that  an  enterpris- 
ing coachman  and  groom  had  been  riding  them  peri- 
odically to  Teignmouth,  and  playing  a  nocturnal 
part  in  the  landing  of  smuggled  cargoes,  these  being 
stowed  in  the  cellars  of  a  decaying  villa,  which  for 
years  had  remained  tenantless  owing  to  persistent 
rumors  that  it  was  haunted  by  a  regiment  of  ex- 
ceedingly savage  ghosts.  The  only  other  approach 
to  anything  like  rural  violence  which  reached  our 
ears  through  the  channel  of  oral  tradition  was  an 
event  which  must  have  occurred  about  the  year 
1830,  and  was  reported  to  the  Archdeacon  by  George 
Diggins,  his  old  factotum.  This  was  the  plunder 
of  a  vessel  which  had  been  wrecked  the  night  before 
somewhere  between  Plymouth  and  Salcombe.  The 
Archdeacon  asked  if  no  authorities  had  interfered. 
"I  heard,  sir,"  said  George  Diggins,  "that  a  revenue 
officer  did  what  he  could  to  stop  'un,  but  they 

22 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

hadn't  a  sarved  he  very  genteel.  This  statement 
meant  that  they  had  pushed  him  over  the  cliffs. 

Otherwise  the  stories  of  rural  life  that  reached  me, 
though  relating  to  times  which  have  in  popular 
oratory  been  associated  with  the  rick-burnings  and 
kindred  outrages  "by  which  the  wronged  peasant 
righted  himself,"  were  pictures  of  a  general  content, 
broken  only  by  individual  vicissitudes,  which  were 
accepted  and  bewailed  as  part  of  the  common  order 
of  nature.  Of  such  individual  afflictions  the  larger 
part  were  medical.  The  women,  even  the  most 
robust,  would  rarely  confess  to  the  enjoyment  of 
anything  so  uninteresting  as  a  condition  of  rude 
health.  The  usual  reply  made  by  them  to  the  in- 
quiries of  any  lady  visitant  was,  "Thankee,  ma'am, 
I  be  torrable"  (tolerable);  but,  if  conscious  of  any 
definite  malady,  their  diagnosis  of  their  own  cases 
would,  though  simple,  be  more  precise.  One  of 
them  told  my  mother  that  for  days  she'd  been  ter- 
rible bad.  ' '  My  inside, ' '  she  said,  ' '  be  always  a-com- 
ing  up,  though  I've  swallowed  a  pint  of  shot  by  this 
time  merely  to  keep  my  liver  down." 

In  cottage  households,  though  occasionally  there 
might  be  some  shortage  of  food,  there  were  no  in- 
dications of  anything  like  general  or  chronic  want. 
Indeed,  if  delicacies  which  the  inmates  had  never 
seen  before  were  brought  them  as  a  present  from 
this  or  from  that  "great  house,"  they  would  often 
eye  them  askance,  and  make  a  favor  of  taking  them. 
That  the  ordinary  diet  of  the  Devonshire  cottagers 

23 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  those  days  contented  them  is  shown  by  the  din- 
ner prepared  for  a  man  who  worked  at  a  limekiln 
by  his  wife,  which  she  complacently  exhibited  to 
my  mother  as  at  once  appetizing  and  nutritious. 
It  was  a  species  of  dumpling  with  an  onion,  instead 
of  an  apple,  in  the  middle  of  it,  the  place  of  the  cus- 
tomary crust  being  taken  by  home-baked  bread. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  cottagers,  no  less  than 
their  richer  neighbors,  were  preoccupied  by  interests 
other  than  those  of  mere  domestic  economy.  Their 
gossip  would  accordingly  take  a  wider  range,  as 
when  one  of  them  announced  to  an  aunt  of  mine 
that  a  son  and  a  daughter  who  had  emigrated  to  the 
United  States  had  "got  stuck  in  the  mud  just  out- 
side America." 

Often  their  discourses  would  relate  to  domestic 
discipline  and  theology.  There  was  a  certain  Mrs. 
Pawley  whose  dwelling  was  widely  celebrated  as  the 
scene  of  almost  constant  strife  between  herself  and 
her  husband,  and  who,  on  being  asked  by  one  of  her 
lady  patronesses  if  she  could  not  do  something  to 
make  matters  run  more  smoothly,  replied:  "That's 
just  what  I  tries  to  do,  ma'am.  I  labor  for  peace, 
but  when  I  speak  to  he  thereof,  he  makes  hisself 
ready  for  battle  direckly." 

Another  good  woman  again  had  acquired  an  un- 
enviable fame  by  some  petty  act  of  larceny  which 
the  magistrates  had  been  bound  to  punish,  and  was 
explaining  in  tears  on  her  doorstep  to  some  lady's 
sympathetic  ears  that  she  had  done  the  unfortunate 

24 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

deed  merely  because  she  was  "temp'ed,"  on  which  a 
neighbor,  who  had  no  need  for  repentance,  promptly 
appeared  on  the  scene  and  said  to  her:  "My  dear 
crachur  (creature),  why  be  you  temp'ed  to  do  sich 
thing?  I  be  never  temp'ed  to  do  nothing  but  what's 
good." 

Passing  one  day  through  an  orchard,  Mr.  Froude 
the  historian  encountered  a  man  who  was  con- 
templating a  heap  of  apples.  The  man  looked  up 
as  though  about  to  speak  of  the  crop,  but  instead 
of  doing  so  he  gave  vent  to  the  following  reflection : 
"Pretty  job,  sir,"  he  said,  "there  was  about  a  apple 
one  time.  Now  the  De-vine,  He  might  have  pre- 
vented that  if  He'd  had  a  mind  to.  But  com',  sir, 
'tis  a  mystery." 

Moral  theology  would  sometimes  take  a  more  skep- 
tical turn.  A  certain  Mr.  Edwardes — a  most  amusing 
man — used  to  describe  a  call  which  he  paid  one 
Sunday  afternoon  to  a  farmer  near  Buckfastleigh, 
whom  he  found  reading  his  Bible.  Mr.  Edwardes 
congratulated  him  on  the  appropriate  nature  of  his 
studies.  The  farmer  pushed  the  book  aside,  and, 
pointing  to  the  open  pages,  which  were  those  con- 
taining the  account  of  the  fall  of  Jericho,  said:  "Do 
'ee  believe  that,  sir?  Well— I  don't."  Mr.  Ed- 
wardes, with  becoming  piety,  observed  that  we  were 
bound  to  believe  whatever  the  Scriptures  told  us. 
"Well,"  the  farmer  continued,  "when  I  was  a  boy 
they  used  to  bake  here  in  the  town  oven,  and  when- 
ever the  oven  was  heated,  they  sounded  a  sheep's 

25 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

horn.  Some  of  the  boys  Sundays  would  get  hold  of 
that  horn,  just  for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  and  blaw  it 
for  all  it  was  worth.  If  that  there  story  was  true, 
there  wouldn't  be  a  house  in  Buckfastleigh  standing." 

Independent,  if  not  skeptical,  thought  was  repre- 
sented even  by  one  of  the  members  of  Archdeacon 
Froude's  own  domestic  establishment — a  house  car- 
penter, who  was  a  kind  of  uncanonical  prophet.  He 
would  see  in  the  meadows  visions  of  light  and  fire 
like  Ezekiel's,  and  convert  his  commonest  actions 
into  means  of  edification.  On  one  occasion,  when  he 
was  constructing  a  bedroom  cupboard,  a  daughter  of 
the  house  remarked,  as  she  paused  to  watch  him, 
"Well,  John,  that  cupboard  is  big  enough."  "It," 
said  the  prophet,  reflectively,  "is  immense,  but  yet 
confined.  I  know  of  something  which  is  immense, 
but  not  confined."  On  being  asked  what  this  was 
he  answered,  "The  love  of  God." 

Yet  another  story  told  by  Mr.  Antony  Froude  il- 
lustrates rural  mentality  in  relation  to  contemporary 
politics.  Mr.  Froude  was  the  tenant  of  a  well-known 
house  in  Devonshire,  and  had  come  to  be  on  very 
friendly  terms  with  Mr.  Emmot,  his  landlord's 
agent,  a  typical  and  true  Devonian.  One  day  Mr. 
Emmot  came  to  him  in  a  condition  of  some  per- 
plexity. He  had  been  asked  an  important  question, 
and  was  anxious  to  know  if  the  answer  he  had  given 
to  it  was  satisfactory.  It  appeared  that  a  cottager 
who  had  a  bit  of  land  of  his  own  had  been  saying  to 
him,  "Look  here,  Mr.  Emmot:  can  you  tell  us 

26 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

rightly  what  the  difference  be  between  a  Conserva- 
tive and  a  Radical?"  "Well,  Mr.  Froude,"  said 
Mr.  Emmot,  "I  didn't  rightly  knaw  the  philosophy 
of  the  thing,  so  I  just  said  to  'un  this:  'You  knaw 
me;  well,  I  be  a  Conservative.  You  knaw  Jack 
Radford — biggest  blackguard  in  the  parish — well,  he 
be  a  Radical.  Now  you  knaw.' " 

Chance  reminiscences  such  as  those  which  have 
just  been  quoted  will  be  sufficient  to  indicate  what, 
so  far  as  a  child  could  understand  them,  the  condi- 
tions and  ways  of  thinking  of  the  rural  population 
were,  and  how  easy  and  unquestioning  were  the  rela- 
tions which  then  subsisted  between  it  and  the  old 
landed  families.  These  relations  were  easy,  because 
the  differences  between  the  two  classes  were  com- 
monly assumed  to  be  static,  one  supporting  and  one 
protecting  the  other,  as  though  they  resembled  two 
geological  strata.  In  slightly  different  language, 
society  was  presented  to  us  in  the  form  of  two  im- 
memorial orders — the  men,  women,  and  children 
who  touched  their  hats  and  curtsied,  and  the  men, 
women,  and  children  to  whom  these  salutations  were 
made. 

I  am  not,  however — let  me  say  it  again — attempt- 
ing to  write  a  chapter  of  English  history,  or  to  give 
a  precise  description  of  facts  as  they  actually  were 
so  much  as  to  depict  the  impressions  which  facts, 
such  as  they  were,  produced  on  children  like  myself 
through  the  medium  of  personal  circumstances.  At 
the  same  time,  in  the  formation  of  these  impressions 

27 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

we  were  far  from  being  left  to  our  own  unaided  intelli- 
gence. Our  impressions,  as  just  depicted,  were  sedu- 
lously confirmed  and  developed  by  carefully  chosen 
governesses.  One  of  these,  young  as  she  was,  was  a 
really  remarkable  woman,  for  whom  English  history 
had  hatched  itself  into  something  like  a  philosophy. 
Her  philosophy  had  two  bases,  one  being  the  postu- 
late of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  the  other  being  her 
interpretation  of  the  victory  of  the  Normans  over 
the  Anglo-Saxons.  Charles  I  she  presented  to  our 
imaginations  as  a  martyr;  and,  what  was  still  more 
important,  she  seriously  taught  us  that  the  popula- 
tion of  modern  England  was  still  divided,  so  far  as 
race  is  concerned,  precisely  as  it  was  at  the  time  of 
the  completion  of  the  Domesday  Book;  that  the 
peers  and  the  landed  gentry  were  more  or  less  pure- 
blooded  Normans,  and  the  mass  of  the  people 
Saxons ;  that  the  principal  pleasure  of  the  latter  was 
to  eat  to  repletion;  that  their  duty  was  to  work  for, 
that  their  privilege  was  to  be  patronized  by,  Norman 
overlords  and  distinguished  Norman  Churchmen; 
and  finally,  that  of  this  Norman  minority  we  our- 
selves were  distinguished  specimens.  All  this  we 
swallowed,  aided  in  doing  so  by  books  like  Woodstock 
and  Ivanhoe.  But  grotesque  as  such  ideas  seem  now, 
they  were  not  more  grotesque  than  those  shadowed 
forth  in  some  of  the  novels  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  and 
more  particularly  in  Sybil,  or  The  Two  Nations.  Had 
we  indeed  been  set  to  compose  an  essay  on  the  social 
conditions,  as  we  ourselves  understood  them,  "The 

28 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Two  Nations"  would  have  been  the  title  which  we 
could  most  appropriately  have  selected  for  it. 

When,  however,  forgetting  our  general  principles, 
we  gave  our  attention  to  the  adult  relations  and  con- 
nections who,  through  personal  acquaintance  or 
otherwise,  constituted  for  us  what  is  commonly  called 
society,  our  respect  for  many  of  them  as  "Normans" 
was  appreciably  tempered  by  a  sense  of  their  dullness 
as  men  and  women.  They  were  nearly  all  of  them 
members  of  old  Devonshire  families,  beyond  the 
circle  of  which  their  interests-  did  not  often  wander. 
But  certain  of  them  in  my  own  memory  stand  out 
from  the  rest  as  interesting  types  of  conditions  which 
by  this  time  have  passed  away.  Of  these  I  may 
mention  four — Emma  and  Antony  Buller,  son  and 
daughter  of  Sir  Antony  Buller  of  Pound;  Lord 
Blatchford,  a  Gladstonian  Liberal,  and  the  cele- 
brated Henry  Philpotts,  the  then  Bishop  of  Exeter. 

Antony  Buller,  who  was  my  godfather,  was  vicar 
of  a  parish  on  the  western  borders  of  Dartmoor. 
In  the  fact  that  "remote  from  towns  he  ran  his  godly 
race"  he  resembled  the  vicar  described  in  "The  De- 
serted Village,"  but  except  for  his  godliness  he  re- 
sembled him  in  little  else.  A  model  of  secluded 
piety,  he  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Christchurch; 
unquestioning  in  his  social  as  well  as  his  Christian 
conservatism,  and  expressing  in  the  refinement  of  his 
voice  and  the  well-bred  quasi-meekness  of  his  bearing 
a  sense  of  family  connection,  tempered  by  a  scholarly 

recognition  of  the  equality  of  human  souls.     Lord 

29 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Blatchford,  his  not  very  distant  neighbor,  was  in 
many  ways  an  Antony  Buller  secularized.  His 
piety,  polished  by  the  classics  and  Oxford  chapels, 
was  what  was  in  those  days  called  Liberal,  rather 
than  Tory.  What  in  Antony  Buller  was  a  con- 
servative Christian  meekness  was  in  Lord  Blatchford 
a  progressive  Christian  briskness;  but  his  belief  in 
popular  progress  was  accompanied  by  a  smile  at  its 
incidents,  as  though  it  were  a  kind  of  frisking  to 
which  the  masses  ought  to  be  welcome  so  long  as  it 
did  not  assume  too  practical  a  character  or  endanger 
any  of  the  palings  within  the  limits  of  which  it 
ought  to  be  confined. 

Emma  Buller,  too,  was  typical,  but  in  a  totally 
different  way.  She  was  a  type  of  that  county  life 
which  railways  have  gradually  modified,  and  by  this 
time  almost  obliterated.  She  was  a  woman  remark- 
able for  her  vivacity,  wit,  and  humor.  At  county 
balls  she  was  an  institution.  At  country  houses 
throughout  Devonshire  and  Cornwall  she  was  a 
familiar  and  welcome  guest,  and  to  half  of  her  hosts 
and  hostesses  she  was  in  one  way  or  another  related. 
Among  her  accomplishments  was  the  singing  of 
comic  songs,  in  a  beautifully  clear  but  half -apologetic 
voice,  so  that  while  gaining  in  point  they  lost  all 
trace  of  vulgarity,  her  eyes  seeming  to  invite  each 
listener  on  whom  she  fixed  them  to  share  with  her 
some  amusement  which  was  only  half  legitimate. 
At  the  Duke  of  Bedford's  house,  near  Tavistock,  she 
exercised  this  magic  one  evening  on  Lord  John 

30 


ROBERT    BROWNING 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Russell.  The  song  which  she  sang  to  him  was  po- 
litical. It  began  thus,  each  verse  having  the  same 
recurring  burden: 

"Come,  listen  while  I  sing  to  you, 

Lord  John,  that  prince  of  sinisters, 
Who  once  pulled  down  the  House  of  Lords, 
The  Crown  and  all  the  ministers. 
That  is,  he  would  have  if  he  could, 
But  a  little  thing  prevented  him." 

For  many  years  she  spent  a  large  part  of  every 
winter  with  Lady  (then  Miss)  Burdett-Coutts,  who 
had  in  those  days  a  large  villa  at  Torquay,  generally 
filled  with  visitors.  Emma  Buller's  allusions  to 
these,  many  of  whom  were  notabilities,  enlarged,  as 
I  listened  to  them  in  my  childhood,  my  conception  of 
the  social  world,  and  made  it  seem  vaguely  livelier 
and  more  fruitful  in  adventure  than  the  hereditary 
circle  with  which  alone  I  was  so  far  familiar. 

This  result  was  accentuated  by  the  stories  told 
in  my  hearing  of  another  personage  well  known  to 
my  family  likewise,  to  which  I  listened  with  a  yet 
keener  appreciation.  Bishop  Philpotts — for  it  is  of 
him  I  speak — holding  till  the  day  of  his  death  a 
"golden  stall"  at  Durham,  the  emoluments  of 
which  amounted  to  £5,000  a  year,  interested  me 
rather  as  a  lay  magnate  than  as  a  clerical.  Among 
the  many  villas  then  rising  at  Torquay  the  Bishop 
built  one  of  the  largest.  This  agreeable  residence, 
in  the  designing  of  which  he  was  helped  by  my 
father,  and  which  overlooked  extensive  glades  and 

31 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

lawns  sloping  down  toward  the  sea,  enabled  him  to 
enjoy  a  society  more  entertaining  than  that  of  his 
own  cathedral  close;  and  the  anecdotes  current  in 
my  family  as  to  his  ways  and  his  mundane  hos- 
pitalities were  as  familiar  to  me  as  those  of  any 
character  in  the  novels  of  Miss  Austen — a  writer 
whose  social  discrimination  delighted  and  appealed 
to  me  before  I  was  ten  years  old. 

The  Bishop  was  renowned  for  his  suave  and  courtly 
manners,  his  charming  voice,  and  the  subtle  pre- 
cision of  its  modulations;  and  the  following  stories 
of  him  are  still  fresh  in  my  memory. 

At  one  of  his  luncheon  parties  he  was  specially 
kind  to  a  country  clergyman's  wife,  who  knew  none 
of  the  company,  and  he  took  her  out  on  a  terrace  in 
order  to  show  her  the  view — a  view  of  the  sea  shut 
in  by  the  crags  of  a  small  cove.  "Ah,  my  lord," 
gasped  the  lady,  "it  reminds  one  so  much  of  Switzer- 
land." "Precisely,"  said  the  Bishop,  "except  that 
there  we  have  the  mountains  without  the  sea,  and 
here  we  have  the  sea  without  the  mountains." 

He  was  somewhat  less  urbane  to  an  ultra-fashion- 
able lady,  his  neighbor,  who  had  developed  a  habit, 
in  his  opinion  objectionable,  of  exhibiting  his  views 
to  her  visitors  by  way  of  passing  the  morning. 
This  lady,  with  a  bevy  of  satellites,  having  appeared 
one  day  in  his  drawing  room  about  the  hour  of 
noon,  the  Bishop,  with  the  utmost  graciousness,  took 
them  into  a  conservatory,  showed  them  some  of  his 
plants  and  then,  opening  a  door,  invited  them  to  go 

32 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

outside.  As  soon  as  they  were  in  the  outer  air,  he 
himself  retreated,  saying,  as  he  closed  the  door,  "We 
lunch  at  one." 

On  another  occasion  at  a  dinner  party  a  shy  young 
lady  was  present,  whose  mother,  with  maternal  par- 
tiality, admitted  that  her  daughter  sang.  After 
dinner  the  Bishop  had  candles  placed  on  the  piano, 
and  begged  the  shrinking  vocalist  to  give  them  an 
exhibition  of  her  skill.  The  luckless  victim  pro- 
tested that  she  could  not  sing  at  all,  but  presently, 
despite  her  objections,  she  was  blushing  on  the  fatal 
music  stool,  and  was  faltering  out  a  desperate  some- 
thing which  was  at  all  events  intended  to  be  a  song. 
"Thank  you,"  said  the  Bishop,  benignly,  as  soon  as 
the  performance  was  ended.  ' '  The  next  time  you  tell 
us  you  cannot  sing  we  shall  know  how  to  believe  you." 

On  yet  another  occasion  two  intrepid  females, 
armed  with  guidebooks,  and  obviously  determined 
to  see  whatever  they  could,  had  entered  the  Bishop's 
carriage  drive,  and  were  considering  which  way  they 
would  take,  when  their  ears  were  caught  by  a  sound 
like  that  of  an  opening  window.  They  discovered, 
on  looking  about  them,  that  the  drive  was  com- 
manded by  a  summerhouse,  and,  framed  in  an  open 
window,  was  the  visage  of  the  Bishop  himself. 
"Ladies,"  he  said,  blandly,  "these  grounds  are  pri- 
vate, as  the  gate  through  which  you  have  just  passed 
may  in  part  have  suggested  to  you.  The  turn  to  the 
left  will  bring  you  in  due  time  to  the  stables.  If  you 
should  go  straight  on  you  will  presently  reach  the 

33 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

house.  Should  you  inspect  the  house,  may  I  men- 
tion to  you  that  in  one  of  the  bedrooms  is  an  invalid  ? 
You  will  perhaps  pardon  my  servants  if  they  do  not 
show  you  that.  Good  morning." 

But  my  boyish  appreciation  of  the  Bishop's  mun- 
dane qualities  was  equaled  by  my  faith  in  the  sacro- 
sanctity  of  his  office.  I  never  for  a  moment  doubted 
that  men  like  Henry  of  Exeter  were  channels  through 
which  the  Christian  priesthood  received  those  mirac- 
ulous powers  by  their  exercise  of  which  alone  it  was 
possible  for  the  ordinary  sinner  to  be  rescued  from 
eternal  torment.  Of  the  structural  doctrines  of  the- 
ology which  were  then  the  shibboleths  of  English 
Churchmanship  generally,  I  never  entertained  a 
doubt.  That  the  universe  was  created  in  the  inside 
of  a  week  four  thousand  and  four  years  before  the 
birth  of  Christ,  and  that  every  word  of  the  Bible  was 
supernaturally  dictated  to  the  writer,  were  to  me 
facts  as  certain  as  the  fact  that  the  ear  this  globular 
or  that  the  date  of  the  battle  of  Hastings  was  1066. 
They  belonged  to  the  same  order  of  things  as  the 
"two  nations";  and  the  attempts  of  certain  persons 
to  discredit  the  former  and  to  disturb  the  reciprocal 
relations  of  the  latter  represented  for  me  a  mood 
so  blasphemous  and  absurd  as  not  to  be  worthy  of  a 
serious  man's  attention. 

And  yet  in  certain  ways  by  the  time  I  was  twelve 
years  old  I  was  something  of  a  revolutionary  myself. 
Like  the  majority  of  healthy  boys,  I  had  tastes  for 
riding  and  shooting,  and  to  such  things  as  rooks  and 

34 


\  - 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

rabbits  my  rifle  was  as  formidable  as  most  boys  could 
desire.  But  long  before  I  was  conscious  of  any  pas- 
sion for  sport  I  found  myself  beset  by  another, 
which  was  very  much  more  insistent — namely,  a 
passion  for  literary  composition — I  cannot  say  a 
taste  for  writing,  for  I  dictated  verses  to  the  nursery- 
maids before  I  could  hold  a  pen.  As  soon  as  I  was 
able  to  read  I  came  across  the  works  of  Fielding, 
whose  style  I  endeavored  to  imitate  in  a  series  of 
lengthy  novels,  deriving  as  I  did  so  a  precocious  sense 
of  manhood  from  the  eighteenth-century  oaths  with 
which  I  garnished  the  conversation  of  my  characters. 
My  ambitions,  however,  as  a  writer  of  fiction  were  on 
the  whole  less  constant  than  those  which  I  enter- 
tained as  a  poet.  By  governesses  and  other  instruc- 
tors, Wordsworth  and  Tennyson  were  obtruded  on 
me  as  models  of  beauty  and  edification.  Words- 
worth I  thought  ridiculous.  Tennyson  seemed  to  me 
unmanly  and  mawkish.  The  poets  I  found  out  for 
myself  were  Dryden  and,  more  particularly,  Pope; 
and  when  I  was  about  fourteen  I  imagined  myself 
destined  to  win  back  for  Pope,  as  a  model,  the  su- 
premacy he  had  unfortunately  lost,  while  the  senti- 
mentalities of  Tennyson  and  his  followers  would 
disappear  like  the  fripperies  of  faded  and  outworn 
fashions. 

When  my  father  and  his  family  migrated  from  the 
banks  of  the  Exe  to  Denbury  these  literary  projects 
found  fresh  means  of  expanding  themselves.  Oppo- 
site the  front  door  of  the  Manor  House  was  a  large 

35 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

and  antique  annexe,  once  occupied  by  a  bailiff  who 
managed  the  home  farm.  This  my  grandfather  had 
intended  to  connect  with  the  main  building,  by 
which  means  the  Manor  House  would  have  been 
nearly  doubled  in  size.  His  scheme  was  not  carried 
out.  The  annexe,  covered  with  increasing  growths 
of  ivy,  remained  locked  up  and  isolated,  and  for 
many  years  stood  empty.  But  on  the  Archdeacon's 
death,  and  the  removal  of  his  household  from 
Dartington,  a  use  was  at  last  found  for  it.  The 
upper  rooms  were  converted  into  a  temporary  store- 
house for  his  library — large  rooms  which  now  were 
lined  with  shelves,  and  in  which  fires  were  frequently 
lighted  to  keep  the  volumes  dry.  In  a  moment  of 
happy  inspiration  I  obtained  permission  to  look 
after  the  fires  myself.  The  key  was  placed  in  my 
possession.  Day  by  day  I  entered.  I  locked  myself 
in,  and  all  the  world  was  before  me. 

I  had  often  before  been  irritated,  and  my  curiosity 
had  been  continually  piqued,  by  finding  that  certain 
books — most  of  them  plays  of  the  time  of  Charles  II 
— would  be  taken  away  from  me  and  secreted  if  I 
happened  to  have  abstracted  some  such  stray  vol- 
ume from  a  bookcase;  but  here  I  was  my  own 
master.  My  grandfather's  library  was,  as  I  have 
said  already,  particularly  rich  in  literature  of  this 
semiforbidden  class,  and  rows  of  plays  and  poems 
by  Congreve,  Etheridge,  Rochester,  Dryden,  and 
their  contemporaries  offered  themselves  to  my  study, 
as  though  by  some  furtive  assignation.  Among 

36 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

other  wrecks  of  furniture  with  which  the  worm- 
eaten  floors  were  encumbered  was  an  old  and  bat- 
tered rocking-horse,  bestriding  which  I  studied  these 
secret  volumes,  and  found  in  it  an  enchanted  steed 
which  would  lift  me  into  the  air  and  convey  me  to 
magically  distant  kingdoms. 

Inspired  by  these  experiences,  and  fancying  myself 
destined  to  accomplish  a  counter-revolution  in  the 
literary  taste  of  England,  I  endeavored  night  by 
night  to  lay  the  foundations  of  my  own  poetic  fame. 
My  bedroom  was  pungent  with  the  atmosphere  of  a 
pre-Tennysonian  world.  Its  floor,  uneven  with  age, 
was  covered  with  a  carpet  whose  patterns  had  faded 
into  a  dim  monochrome,  and  its  walls  were  dark  with 
portraits  of  Copplestone  forefathers  in  flowing  wigs 
and  satins.  My  bed  was  draped  with  immemorial 
curtains,  colored  like  gold  and  bordered  with  black 
velvet.  Close  to  the  bed  was  a  round  mahogany 
table,  furnished  with  pens  and  paper,  and  night  by 
night,  propped  up  by  pillows,  I  endeavored  to  rival 
Dryden  and  Pope,  by  means  of  a  quill  wet  with  the 
dews  of  Parnassus — dews  which,  having  sprinkled 
the  bedclothes,  would  scandalize  the  housemaids  the 
next  morning  by  their  unfortunate  likeness  to  ink. 
My  father  had  originally  meant  to  send  me  to  Har- 
row, but,  on  the  recommendation  of  one  of  the  sons 
of  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  he  first  tried  on  me  the 
effects  of  a  school  which  had  just  been  established 
for  the  purpose  of  combining  the  ordinary  course  of 
education  with  an  inculcation  of  the  extremest  prin- 
4  37 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ciples  of  the  High  Church  Anglican  party?  I  was, 
however,  deficient  in  one  of  the  main  characteristics 
on  which  a  boy's  suitability  to  school  life  depends :  I 
had  an  ingrained  dislike,  not  indeed  of  physical 
exercise,  but  of  games.  Football  to  me  seemed 
merely  a  tiresome  madness,  and  cricket  the  same 
madness  in  a  more  elaborate  form.  Instead,  there- 
fore, of  promoting  me  to  Harrow,  where  two  of  his 
brothers  had  been  educated,  he  took,  after  many  de- 
lays, a  step  for  which  I  sincerely  thanked  him — he 
transferred  me,  by  way  of  preparation  for  Oxford, 
to  the  most  congenial  and  delightful  of  all  possible 
private  tutors,  at  whose  house  I  spent  the  happiest 
years  of  my  life. 


CHAPTER  III 

A   PRIVATE   TUTOR   DE   LUXE 

Early  Youth  Under  a  Private  Tutor — Poetry — Premonitions  of 
Modern  Liberalism 

rTT^HE  tutor  of  whom  I  have  spoken  was  the 
Rev.  W.  B.  Philpot,  a  favorite  pupil  of 
J^  Doctor  Arnold's  at  Rugby,  an  intimate  friend 
of  Tennyson's,  and  himself  a  devotee  of  the  Muses. 
His  domed  forehead  was  massive,  his  features  were 
delicately  chiseled,  and  his  eyes  were  a  clear  gray. 
His  back  hair — the  only  hair  he  had  got — showed  a 
slight  tendency  to  assume  picturesque  and  flowing 
curves  on  the  collars  of  his  well-made  coats;  and, 
having  heard  from  my  father  that  I,  too,  was  a 
poet,  he  declared  himself  eager  to  welcome  me,  not 
only  as  a  disciple,  but  also  as  a  valued  friend.  Mr. 
Philpot  lived  at  Littlehampton,  where  he  occupied  a 
most  capacious  house.  It  was  the  principal  house 
in  a  very  old-fashioned  terrace,  which  faced  a  sandy 
common,  and  enjoyed  in  those  days  an  uninter- 
rupted view  of  miles  of  beach  and  the  racing  waves 
of  the  sea.  Mr.  Philpot's  disciples  numbered  from 
ten  to  twelve.  They  had,  for  the  most  part,  been 
removed  from  Harrow  or  Eton,  by  reason  of  no 
worse  fault  than  a  signal  inclination  to  indolence; 
and  though,  even  under  their  preceptor's  genial  and 

39 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

scholarly  auspices,  none  of  them  except  myself 
showed  much  inclination  for  study,  we  formed  to- 
gether an  agreeable  and  harmonious  party,  much  of 
its  amenity  being  due  to  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Phil- 
pot,  his  wife,  whose  brother,  Professor  Conington, 
was  then  the  most  illustrious  representative  of  Latin 
learning  at  Oxford. 

We  enjoyed,  under  Mr.  Philpot's  care,  the  amplest 
domestic  comforts,  and  we  enjoyed,  under  our  own 
care,  almost  unlimited  credit  at  every  shop  in  the 
town.  We  had  carriages,  the  hire  of  which  went 
down  in  Mr.  Philpot's  account,  whenever  we  wanted 
them  for  expeditions;  and  we  would  often  drive  out 
in  the  warm  after-dinner  twilights  to  a  tea  garden 
three  miles  away,  where  we  lingered  among  the 
scent  of  roses  till  the  bell  of  some  remote  church 
tower  sounded,  through  the  dewy  quiet,  its  nine 
notes  to  the  stars.  We  had  boats  on  the  Arun,  a 
stream  on  which  our  oars  would  take  us  sometimes 
beyond  Amberly,  and  not  bring  us  back  till  midnight. 
On  other  occasions  we  would,  like  Tennyson's  hero, 
"nourish  a  youth  sublime"  in  wandering  on  the 
nocturnal  beach,  and,  pre-equipped  with  towels, 
would  bathe  in  the  liquid  moonlight. 

The  Littlehampton  season,  so  far  as  visitors  were 
concerned,  was  summer,  and  from  the  middle  of 
May  onward  various  ladies  of  ornamental  and  in- 
teresting aspect  would  make  their  appearance  on  the 
pavement  of  Beach  Terrace,  or,  seen  on  the  bal- 
conies of  houses  which  had  just  unclosed  their 

40 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

shutters,  would  trouble  and  enliven  the  atmosphere 
with  suggestions  of  vague  adventures.  Some  of 
these  we  came  to  know,  as  Mr.  Philpot  and  his  wife 
had  many  mundane  acquaintances.  Others — and 
indeed  most  of  them — remained  tantalizing  mysteries 
to  the  end.  At  all  events  they  filled  the  air  with  the 
subtle  pollen  of  a  romance  which  a  closer  familiarity 
with  them  might  very  possibly  have  destroyed. 

The  effect  on  myself  of  such  influences  was  pres- 
ently betrayed  by  the  fact  that  poetry,  as  understood 
by  Pope,  no  longer  satisfied  me.  I  gradually  sub- 
mitted to  the  dominion  of  Keats,  Browning,  and 
Matthew  Arnold.  Even  at  Denbury,  in  my  most 
conservative  days,  I  had  so  far  escaped  from  the 
atmosphere  of  Pope's  Pastorals  that  I  had  described 
a  beautiful  valley  in  which  I  would  often  sequester 
myself  as  a  place — • 

Where  no  man's  voice,  or  any  voice  makes  stir, 

Save  sometimes  through  the  leafy  loneliness 
The  long  loose  laugh  of  the  wild  woodpecker. 

One  of  my  fellow  pupils,  whose  youth  had  an  air 
of  manhood,  and  who  played  with  much  expression 
on  the  cornet,  confided  to  me,  on  returning  from  a 
summer  holiday,  his  adventures  on  the  Lake  of 
Como,  where,  resting  on  his  oars,  he  had  agitated 
with  his  musical  notes  the  pulses  of  a  fair  com- 
panion. "Now  there,"  he  said,  "you  have  some- 
thing which,  if  you  tried,  you  might  manage  to  make 
a  verse  about."  I  tried,  and  the  result  was  this: 

41 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  stars  are  o'er  our  heads  in  hollow  skies, 
In  hollow  skies  the  stars  beneath  our  boat, 

Between  the  stars  of  two  infinities 
Midway  upon  a  gleaming  film  we  float. 

j 

My  lips  are  on  the  sounding  horn; 

The  sounding  horn  with  music  fills. 
Faint  echoes  backward  from  the  world  are  borne, 

Tongued  by  yon  distant  zone  of  slumbering  hills. 

The  world  spreads  wide  on  every  side, 

But  cold  and  dark  it  seems  to  me. 
What  care  I  on  this  charmed  tide 
For  aught  save  those  far  stars  and  thee? 

I  accomplished,  however,  such  feats  of  imagination, 
not  on  my  friend's  behalf  only,  but  on  my  own  also. 
Readers  of  Martin  Chuzzlewhit  will  remember  how 
"Baily  Junior,"  who  was  once  bootboy  at  Mrs. 
Todger's  boarding-house,  imagined  that  Mrs.  Gamp 
was  in  love  with  him,  and  that  her  life  was  blighted 
by  the  suspicion  that  such  a  passion  was  hopeless. 
I,  in  common  with  other  imaginative  boys,  was  fre- 
quently beatified  by  the  magic  of  a  not  unlike  il- 
lusion. My  practical  hopes  for  the  future,  so  far  as 
I  troubled  to  form  any,  were  to  enter  the  diplomatic 
service  as  soon  as  I  left  Oxford,  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  this  or  that  distinguished  and  beautiful  lady, 
old  enough  to  be  my  mother,  would  meanwhile  be 
blighted  by  some  hopeless  passion  for  myself,  or  else 
— what,  in  my  opinion,  was  a  still  more  exciting 
alternative — that  I  should,  like  another  Byron,  be 
blighted  into  renown  through  her  treachery  by  a 

42 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

misplaced  passion  for  her.  As  I  paced  the  sands  at 
Littlehampton,  I  pictured  myself  as  having  dis- 
covered her  faithlessness  on  the  eve  of  my  own  de- 
parture for  the  Embassy  at  Constantinople,  and  I 
addressed  to  her  the  following  epistle,  which  I  could 
not,  with  all  my  ingenuity,  manage  to  protract 
beyond  the  two  opening  stanzas : 

For  you  the  ballroom's  jaded  glow — 

The  gems  unworthy  of  your  hair. 
For  me  the  milk-white  domes  that  blow 

Their  bubbles  to  the  orient  air. 

Your  heart  at  dawn  in  curtained  ease 

Shall  ache  through  dreams  that  are  not  rest. 

But  mine  shall  leap  to  meet  the  seas 
That  broke  against  Leander's  breast. 

Such  dreams  are  not  more  absurd  than  those  of 
the  French  Jacobins,  who  thought  themselves  Grac- 
chus or  Brutus;  and  they  were  accompanied  when 
I  was  at  Littlehampton  by  the  growth  of  other  pre- 
occupations, which  related  to  matters  very  different 
from  the  romance  of  individual  adolescence.  Mr. 
Philpot,  in  his  own  tastes,  and  also  in  his  choice 
of  pupils,  was  fastidious  to  a  degree,  which  perhaps 
would  be  out  of  date  to-day,  and  had  actually  been 
known  to  apologize,  under  his  breath,  for  the  fact 
that  one  of  his  flock — a  singularly  handsome  youth 
and  heir  to  an  enormous  fortune — came  of  a  family 
which  "was  still  distinctly  in  business."  But  he 
betrayed,  at  the  same  time,  strong  Radical  leanings. 

43 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Indeed,  through  him  I  first  became  aware  that 
Radicalism  meant  more  than  some  perverse  absurdity 
of  the  ignorant.  He  completely  bewildered  and  at 
the  same  time  amused  his  pupils  by  taking  in  a 
paper  called  The  Beehive,  one  of  the  earliest  of  the 
"Labor  organs"  of  England;  and  from  this  mine  of 
wisdom  he  would  on  occasion  quote.  To  most  of 
us  the  views  expressed  by  him  seemed  no  more  than 
comic  oddities,  but  they  were  to  myself  so  far  a 
definite  irritant  that  I  devised,  though  I  never 
showed  them  to  him,  a  series  of  pictures  called 
"The  Radical's  Progress,"  in  which  the  hero  began 
as  a  potboy  in  a  public  house,  and  ended  as  an  over- 
dressed ruffian,  waving  a  tall  silk  hat  and  throwing 
rotten  eggs  at  Conservative  voters  from  a  cart. 
A  taste  of  Mr.  Philpot's  equalitarian  sentiments  was 
given  to  us  one  day  at  luncheon,  the  occasion  being 
his  wife's  commendation  of  a  celebrated  Sussex 
bootmaker  who  had  just  called  for  orders.  "I  like 
that  man,"  she  said.  "He  is  always  so  civil  and 
respectful. "  "  Mary  Jane !  Mary  Jane ! ' '  said  Mr. 
Philpot,  clearing  his  throat,  and  speaking  from  the 
other  end  of  the  table,  "that  respectfulness  of  yours 
is  a  quality  to  which  I  myself  attach  very  little  im- 
portance." In  view  of  this  speech  we  felt  consid- 
erable satisfaction  when,  a  few  hours  later,  the  day 
being  the  5th  of  November,  a  disturbance  was  made 
by  some  boys  at  the  front  door,  and  Mr.  Philpot, 
snatching  up  a  tall  hat,  went  out  to  appease  the 
storm  by  the  serene  majesty  of  his  presence,  He 

44 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

was  far  from  gratified  when  the  immediate  result 
of  his  intervention  was  to  elicit  the  disrespectful 
cry  of  "Hit  'n  on  the  bloody  drum." 

But,  besides  the  novelty,  as  we  thought  it,  of  his 
vague  democratic  opinions,  he  exhibited  what  to  me 
was  at  least  equally  novel — namely,  a  liberalism 
before  unknown  to  me  with  regard  to  theological 
doctrine.  He  never  obtruded  this  on  us  in  any  sys- 
tematic way;  but  on  not  infrequent  occasions  he 
solemnly  gave  us  to  understand  that  dissenters 
enjoyed  the  means  of  salvation  no  less  fully  than 
Churchmen;  that  sacraments  were  mere  symbols 
useful  for  edification  according  to  varying  circum- 
stances ;  that  sacerdotal  orders  were  mere  certificates 
of  the  fitness  of  individuals  for  the  office  of  Christian 
ministers,  and  that  everything  in  the  nature  of 
dogmatic  authority  was  due  to,  and  tainted  with, 
the  apostacy  of  Babylonian  Rome.  To  myself  all 
this  was  shocking  in  an  extreme  degree,  and  I  began 
to  ask  myself  the  question,  which  might  otherwise 
not  have  occurred  to  me,  of  whether  the  Church  of 
Rome  was  not  perhaps  the  one  true  religion,  after  all. 

These  movements  of  the  spirit  on  my  part  led  to 
the  following  incident.  Among  Mr.  Philpot's  pupils 
was  a  shy  and  very  delicate  boy,  whose  parents  took 
a  house  at  Littlehampton,  and  with  whom  he  lived. 
His  father  was  a  fire-eating  Irish  baronet,  who  might 
have  walked  out  of  the  pages  of  one  of  Lever's  novels. 
His  diet  was  as  meager  as  that  of  an  Indian  fakir, 
though  not  otherwise  resembling  it.  It  consisted 

45 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  rum  and  milk;  and  his  favorite  amusement  was 
lying  down  on  his  bed  and  shooting  with  a  pistol 
at  the  wick  of  a  lighted  candle.  His  wife — a  lady 
of  gentle  and  somewhat  sad  demeanor — one  day  took 
it  into  her  head  to  join  the  Catholic  Church;  and 
Mr.  Philpot  hastened,  as  soon  as  he  heard  the  news, 
to  ask  her,  in  the  name  of  common  sense  and  of 
conscience,  what  could  have  induced  her  to  take  a 
step  so  awful.  Her  answer,  so  he  informed  me  after- 
ward, was  that  I  had  told  her  that  it  was  the  best 
thing  she  could  do.  I  had  no  recollection  of  having 
tendered  to  her  any  such  momentous  advice,  and  Mr. 
Philpot,  who  hardly  could  help  smiling,  acquitted 
me  of  playing  intentionally  the  part  of  a  disguised 
Jesuit.  I  must,  however,  have  said  something  on 
behalf  of  the  mystical  Babylon,  for  not  long  afte/- 
ward  I  was  busy  with  a  theological  poem,  prominent 
in  which  were  the  two  following  lines: 

Oh,  mother,  or  city  of  the  sevenfold  throne, 
We  sit  beside  the  severing  sea  and  mourn — 

and  by  way  of  correcting  such  defects  in  my  senti- 
ments Mr.  Philpot  lent  me  a  work  by  Archer  Butler, 
a  Christian  Platonist,  who  would  provide  me,  in 
his  opinion,  with  a  religious  philosophy  incompar- 
ably more  rational  than  the  Roman.  This  work 
had  the  result  of  directing  me  to  certain  old  trans- 
lations of  Plotinus  and  other  Neoplatonists  of 
Alexandria;  and  my  dominant  idea  for  a  time  was 
that  in  Alexandrian  mysticism  Anglicans  would  dis- 

46 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

cover  a  rock,  firmly  based,  on  which  they  would 
bring  Rome  to  her  knees,  and  conquer  the  whole 
world. 

But  such  juvenile  theologies,  and  the  secret 
troubles  connected  with  them,  did  not  seriously 
interfere  with  the  adventurous  optimism  of  youth. 
They  did  but  give  a  special  flavor  to  the  winds 
blown  from  the  sea,  to  the  suggestions  of  the  sun- 
sets on  which  the  eyes  of  youth  looked,  and  mixed 
themselves  with  the  verses  of  Browning,  Matthew 
Arnold,  and  Shelley.  But  a  yet  more  successful 
rival  to  the  speculations  of  Archer  Butler  and 
Plotinus  was,  in  my  own  case,  another  and  a  new 
poet,  who  had  at  that  time  just  made  himself 
famous.  This  poet  was  Swinburne,  who  had  re- 
cently given  to  the  world  his  first  Poems  and  Bal- 
lads. That  volume,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  an 
outrage  on  morals  and  decency,  had  been  received, 
when  originally  published,  with  such  a  howl  of 
execration  that  the  publishers  hastily  withdrew 
it,  and  for  some  time  it  was  unobtainable;  but  at 
length  another  firm  found  courage  enough  to  under- 
take its  reissue.  To  Mr.  Philpot,  who  knew  it  merely 
by  extracts,  the  mere  mention  of  this  volume  seemed 
to  be  something  in  the  nature  of  an  indecency.  But 
there  is  always  an  attraction  in  the  forbidden.  I 
dreamed  of  this  volume,  from  which  I  had  seen  ex- 
tracts likewise;  and  at  last  a  chance  came  to  me  of 
securing  an  apple  from  the  boughs  of  this  replanted 
tree  of  knowledge. 

47 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Among  our  various  dissipations  were  occasional 
excursions  to  Brighton,  and  on  one  of  these  I  was 
accompanied  by  a  fellow  pupil  whose  family  had  a 
house  there  in  one  of  the  then  fashionable  squares. 
The  family  was  absent,  but  the  house  was  open, 
and  my  friend  proposed  that  we  should  sleep  there 
and  make  a  night  of  it.  We  accordingly  telegraphed 
to  Mr.  Philpot  that  we  should  be  back  next  day  by 
breakfast  time,  and  arranged  to  dine  early,  and 
spend  the  evening  at  the  play.  As  we  walked  to  the 
theater  we  found  the  shops  still  open,  and  we  paused 
to  look  for  a  moment  at  the  windows  of  Treacher's 
Library.  In  a  long  row  of  volumes  I  saw  one  bound 
in  green.  Its  gilt  lettering  glittered,  and  the  gas- 
light revealed  to  me  the  reissued  poems  of  Swin- 
burne. I  went  in  and  bought  it  and  entered  the  dress 
circle  hugging  this  priceless  treasure.  The  play,  I 
believe,  had  something  to  do  with  racing,  but  I 
hardly  looked  at  the  stage.  My  eyes  and  attention 
were  magnetized  by  the  green  object  on  my  knee. 
I  occasionally  peeped  at  its  pages;  but  the  light, 
while  the  play  was  in  progress,  was  too  dim  to  render 
the  print  legible.  Between  the  acts,  however,  I 
began  to  decipher  stanzas  such  as  the  following,  and 
notes  new  to  the  world  invaded  my  ears  like  magic: 

The  sea  gives  her  shells  to  the  shingle, 
The  earth  gives  hen  streams  to  the  sea, 

or  again: 

As  the  waves  of  the  ebb  drawing  seaward 
When  their  hollows  are  full  of  the  night. 
48 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

When  had  words,  I  asked  myself,  ever  made  music 
such  as  this?  I  felt  by  the  time  I  got  back  to  my 
friend's  door  that: 

I  on  honey  dew  had  fed, 
And  drunk  the  milk  of  paradise. 

This  magic  still  remained  with  me  when,  my  days 
at  Littlehampton  being  ended,  I  went  at  length  to 
Oxford.  But  meanwhile  to  my  conditions  at  home  a 
new  element  was  added,  by  which  the  scope  of  my 
experiences  was  at  once  greatly  enlarged. 

I  have  mentioned  already  that,  during  the  first 
sixty  years  of  the  growth  of  Torquay,  the  owners 
of  Cockington  had  preserved  their  rural  seclusion 
intact,  having  refused,  during  that  long  period,  to 
permit  the  erection  of  more  than  two  villas  on  their 
property.  But  somewhere  about  the  year  1860  a 
solitary  exception  was  made  in  favor  of  Mr.  William 
Froude,  my  mother's  eldest  brother,  to  whom,  by 
my  paternal  uncle,  a  lease  was  granted  of  a  certain 
number  of  acres  on  the  summit  of  what  was  then  a 
wooded  and  absolutely  rural  hill.  Here  he  erected 
a  house  of  relatively  considerable  size,  from  which, 
as  a  distant  spectacle,  Torquay  was  visible  beyond 
a  tract  of  intervening  treetops.  It  was  nearing 
completion  at  the  time  when  I  was  first  under  Mr. 
Philpot's  care.  My  father,  being  a  complete  recluse, 
and  my  kindred,  whether  at  Cockington  Court  or 
otherwise,  confining  their  intimacies  to  hereditary 
friends  and  connections,  I  found  few  fresh  excite- 

49 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ments  at  their  houses  or  his  beyond  such  as  I  could 
spin  for  myself,  like  a  spider,  out  of  my  own  entrails. 
It  was,  therefore,  for  me  a  very  agreeable  circum- 
stance that  presently  in  Chelston  Cross,  while  I 
was  still  under  Mr.  Philpot's  care,  I  was  provided 
with  a  second  home  during  a  large  part  of  my  holi- 
days, and  subsequently  of  my  Oxford  vacations, 
where  the  stir  of  the  outer  world  was  very  much 
more  in  evidence. 

Distinguished  as  a  man  of  science,  a  mathematician, 
and  a  classical  scholar,  Mr.  Froude  possessed  the 
most  fascinating  manners  imaginable.  His  wife, 
!:he  daughter  of  an  old-world  Devonshire  notable 
who  once  owned  the  borough  of  Dartmouth,  re- 
turning two  members  for  it,  he  himself  being  always 
one,  was  a  woman  of  remarkable  intellect,  of  a  sin- 
gularly genial  shrewdness,  and  of  manners  attrac- 
tive to  every  one  with  whom  she  might  come  in 
contact.  Indeed,  no  two  persons  could  have  been 
more  happily  qualified  than  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William 
Froude,  together  with  their  daughter  (subsequently 
Baroness  A.  von  Hugel),  to  render  their  house  a 
center  of  interesting  and  intellectual  society,  and 
their  circle  of  friends  was  widened  by  two  adventi- 
tious circumstances.  Mrs.  Froude,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Newman,  who  was  her  frequent  and  in- 
timate correspondent,  had  entered  the  Catholic 
Church,  her  children  following  her  example,  and  the 
freemasonry  of  a  common  faith  resulted  in  closely 
connecting  her  and  hers  with  various  old  Catholic 

50 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

families  and  many  distinguished  converts;  while 
Mr.  Froude,  at  the  time  to  which  I  now  refer,  was 
becoming,  through  his  indulgence  in  purely  acci- 
dental taste,  a  figure  in  the  world  of  national,  and 
even  of  international,  affairs. 

His  favorite  recreation  was  yachting,  and  one  of 
his  possessions  was  a  sailing  yacht.  He  was  thus, 
as  a  man  of  alert  observation,  led  to  pay  special 
attention  to  the  relation  of  a  vessel's  lines  to  its  be- 
havior under  different  conditions  in  respect  of  its 
stability  and  speed,  and  the  project  occurred  to  him 
of  testing  his  rough  conclusions  by  means  of  mini- 
ature models,  these  being  placed  in  some  small  body 
of  water  and  then  submitted  to  systematic  experi- 
ments. Accordingly,  soon  after  he  had  settled  him- 
self at  Chelston  Cross,  he  proceeded  to  lease  a  field 
which  adjoined  his  garden,  and  constructed  in  it 
a  sort  of  covered  canal,  along  which  models  of  vari- 
ous designs  were  towed,  the  towing-machine  record- 
ing the  various  results  by  diagrams.  The  discoveries 
which  Mr.  Froude  thus  made  soon  proved  so  remark- 
able that  Edward,  Duke  of  Somerset  (then  First 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty),  secured  for  him  a  govern- 
ment grant,  in  order  that  his  operations  might  be 
extended,  the  whole  of  the  earlier  expenses  having 
been  borne  by  Mr.  Froude  himself.  The  enterprise 
soon  attracted  the  attention  of  other  governments 
also;  Admiral  Popoff,  on  behalf  of  the  Tsar,  having 
come  all  the  way  from  Russia  to  visit  Mr.  Froude 
in  connection  with  it.  But  the  pilgrims  to  Chelston 

5* 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Cross  were  not  naval  experts  only.  Torquay  was 
at  that  time  nearing  its  social  zenith,  and  the  rumor 
that  Mr.  Froude  was  conducting  a  series  of  mysteri- 
ous experiments  which  bade  fair  to  revolutionize 
the  naval  architecture  of  the  world  stirred  interest 
in  many  men  of  mark — statesmen  and  others  who 
were  far  from  being  naval  experts,  and  also  of  ladies, 
many  of  them  with  charming  eyes  whose  attention 
alone  was,  in  my  opinion  at  all  events,  sufficient  to 
throw  a  halo  of  success  round  any  experiment  which 
excited  it. 

All  of  these,  masculine  and  feminine  alike,  were 
sensible  of  the  charm  of  Mr.  William  Froude  and 
his  family;  and  for  many  years,  even  in  London, 
it  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  house  mo/e 
frequented  than  Chelston  Cross  by  a  society  of  well- 
known  and  entertaining  persons,  not  only  English, 
but  continental  and  American  also.  Thus,  during 
the  years  of  my  tutelage  at  Littlehampton  and  Ox- 
ford, which  comprised  but  occasional  and  brief  visits 
to  London,  I  acquired  a  considerable  acquaintance, 
and  what  may  be  called  some  knowledge  of  the 
world,  before  I  had  entered  the  world  as  my  own 
master  and  on  my  own  account.  Of  the  persons 
with  whom  I  became,  during  that  period,  familiar 
some  idea  may  be  given  by  a  mention  of  the  names, 
or  by  brief  sketches,  of  a  few  of  them — those  being 
selected  who,  whether  as  types  or  otherwise,  may 
still  have  some  meaning  and  interest  for  the  social 
generation  of  to-day. 

52 


CHAPTER  IV 

WINTER   SOCIETY   AT   TORQUAY 

Early  Acquaintance  with  Society — Byron's  Grandson — Lord 
Houghton — A  Dandy  of  the  Old  School — Carlyle — Lord  Lytton, 
and  Others — Memorable  Ladies 

OF  the  men — the  noteworthy  men — with  whom 
1*  thus  became  acquainted  before  I  had 
escaped  from  the  torture  of  my  last  exami- 
nation at  Oxford,  most  had  a  taste  for  literature, 
while  some  had  achieved  renown  in  it.  Of  these, 
however,  the  first  with  whom  I  became  intimate 
was  one  whose  literary  connections  were  vicarious 
rather  than  personal.  My  friendship  with  him 
originated  in  the  fact  that  he  was  an  old  friend  of 
the  Froudes,  and,  as  soon  as  Chelston  Cross  was 
completed,  he  would  pay  them  protracted  visits 
there.  This  was  the  then  Lord  Wentworth,  who  for 
me  was  a  magical  being  because  he  was  Byron's 
grandson.  Another  acquaintance  who  brought  with 
him  a  subtle  aroma  of  poetry  was  Wentworth 's 
remarkable  brother-in-law,  Wilfrid  Blunt,  then  the 
handsomest  of  our  younger  English  diplomatists,  a 
breeder  of  Arab  horses,  and  also  the  author  of  love 
poems  which  deserve  beyond  all  comparison  more 
attention  than  they  have  yet  received.  Others 
again  were  Robert  Browning,  Ruskin,  Carlyle,  and 
5  53 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Swinburne.  These  I  met  either  at  Oxford  or  in 
London,  but  to  those  whom  I  came  to  know  through 
the  William  Froudes  at  Torquay  may  be  added 
Aubrey  de  Vere,  the  Catholic  poet  of  Ireland,  Lord 
Houghton,  Lord  Lytton,  the  novelist,  and  the  sec- 
ond Lord  Lytton,  his  son,  known  to  all  lovers  of 
poetry  under  the  pseudonym  of  "Owen  Meredith." 
As  figures  then  prominent  in  the  winter  society  of 
Torquay,  I  may  mention  also  a  courtly  cleric,  the 
Rev.  Julian  Young,  a  great  diner  out  and  giver  of 
dinners  to  the  great,  a  raconteur  of  the  first  order, 
a  very  complete  re-embodiment  of  the  spirit  of 
Sidney  Smith,  and,  further,  an  old  Mr.  Bevan,  who, 
sixty  years  before,  when  he  occupied  a  house  in 
Stratton  Street,  had  flourished  as  an  Amphitryon 
and  a  dandy  under  the  patronage  of  the  Prince 
Regent. 

Of  the  ladies  of  Torquay  who,  together  with  men 
like  these,  were  prominent  in  my  social  landscape 
as  I  to-day  recollect  it,  it  is  less  easy  to  speak, 
partly  because  they  were  more  numerous,  and  partly 
because  many  of  them  impressed  me  in  more  elusive 
ways.  I  may,  however,  mention  a  few  of  them  who 
were  well  known  as  hostesses — the  Dowager  Lady 
Brownlow,  Mrs.  Vivian,  Lady  Erskine  of  Cambo, 
Lady  Louisa  Finch-Hatton,  Miss  Burdett-Coutts, 
and  Susan,  Lady  Sherborne.  All  these  ladies  were 
the  occupants  of  spacious  houses  the  doors  of  which 
were  guarded  by  skillfully  powdered  footmen,  and 
which,  winter  after  winter,  were  so  many  social 

54 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

centers.  Lady  Sherborne,  indeed,  was  far  more 
than  a  hostess:  she  was  unrivaled  as  a  singer  of 
simple  English  songs — songs  which  her  low  voice 
filled  with  every  trouble  of  which  the  human  heart 
is  capable;  and  as  such  she  was,  under  a  thin  dis- 
guise, celebrated  by  the  first  Lord  Lytton  in  one  of 
his  latest  novels.  To  these  ladies  might  be  added 
innumerable  others  whose  claims  on  my  memory 
do  not  in  all  cases  lend  themselves  to  very  exact 
statement.  Most  of  them  were  English,  and  some 
of  them,  then  in  the  bloom  of  youth  and  beauty, 
have  between  that  time  and  this  played  their  parts 
in  the  London  world  and  ended  them.  But  not  a 
few  were  foreign — vivacious  Northerners  from  New 
York,  with  the  sublimated  wealth  of  all  Paris  in 
their  petticoats;  Southerners  whose  eyes  were  still 
plaintive  with  memories  of  the  Civil  War;  Austrians 
such  as  the  von  Hugels ;  Germans  such  as  Countess 
Marie  and  Countess  Helen  Bismarck;  and  Russians 
whose  figures  and  faces  I  remember  much  more 
accurately  than  their  names. 

It  is  idle,  however,  to  say  more  of  these,  whose 
charms  are  with  the  last  year's  snows.  And  yet  of 
these  there  were  two  of  whom  I  may,  for  purposes 
of  illustration,  say  something  in  detail.  The  two 
were  sisters — we  may  call  them  Miss  X  and  Miss 
Y — whose  invalid  father,  a  cadet  of  a  well-known 
family,  rarely  left  Torquay,  where  for  some  months 
of  the  year  his  daughters,  otherwise  emancipated 
from  parental  control,  stayed  with  him.  Both  of 

55 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

these  sisters  were  beautiful,  and,  so  far  as  the  resi- 
dent ladies  of  Torquay  were  concerned,  they  re- 
ceived what  is  incomparably  the  sincerest  form  of 
homage  that  extraordinary  beauty  can  elicit  from 
ladies  who  do  not  possess  it.  Each  of  them  was 
labeled  as  possessing  that  mysterious  thing  called 
"a  history,"  or  a  shadow  on  her  reputation  of  some 
sort,  which  my  imagination,  as  soon  as  I  heard  of 
it  (I  was  then  about  sixteen),  turned  into  a  halo  iri- 
descent with  the  colors  of  romance.  For  me,  in 
Swinburne's  words,  they  were  "daughters  of  dreams 
and  of  stories"  before  I  knew  either  by  sight,  or 
had  any  prospect  of  doing  so.  Dreams,  except  un- 
pleasant ones,  do  not  often  fulfill  themselves,  but  an 
exception  to  this  rule  was  one  day  made  in  my  favor. 
As  I  was  going  home  for  my  holidays  from  Little- 
hampton  to  Devonshire,  my  compartment  at  East- 
leigh  Junction  was  invaded  by  a  feminine  apparition, 
accompanied  by  a  French  poodle,  which  she  placed 
on  the  cushion  opposite  to  her.  Her  dress,  though 
I  divined  its  perfection,  was  quiet  and  plain  enough ; 
but  the  compartment,  as  soon  as  she  entered  it, 
seemed  to  be  filled  at  once  with  the  kind  of  fugitive 
flash  which  sunlit  water  sometimes  casts  on  a  ceil- 
ing. Acting,  I  suppose,  on  the  principle  of  "Love 
me,  love  my  dog,"  I  had  the  temerity  to  express 
a  commendation,  entirely  insincere,  of  hers;  and 
this  being  received  with  a  graciousness  not  perhaps 
unmixed  with  amusement,  we  were  very  soon  in 
conversation.  She  talked  of  Nice,  of  Baden-Baden, 

56 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

and  London;  then  she  got  to  literature — I  cannot 
remember  how — and  a  moment  later  she  was  vouch- 
safing to  me  the  intimate  information  that  she  was 
a  poetess,  and  had  contributed  an  anonymous  poem 
to  a  certain  lately  published  collection.  Then,  having 
caught  my  name  on  a  printed  label,  she  said,  with  a 
smile,  "Is  it  possible  that  you  are  on  your  way  to 
Torquay  ? "  I  answered  that  I  should  be  there  shortly, 
and,  while  elaborating  this  proposition,  I  managed 
to  inspect  the  French  poodle's  collar,  on  which  was 
engraved  the  name  of  the  fair  owner.  In  a  flash 
the  personality  of  this  "daughter  of  dreams"  was 
disclosed  to  me.  This  was  Miss  X,  the  most  talked 
about  of  the  two  wonderful  sisters.  As  I  gathered 
that  she  herself  would  be  soon  at  Torquay  likewise, 
I  tried,  when  she  got  out  at  some  intermediate 
station,  to  express  a  hope  that,  if  we  met  in  the  street, 
she  would  not  have  wholly  forgotten  me;  but  my 
modesty  would  not  allow  me  to  find  adequate  words. 
On  the  Parade,  however,  at  Torquay,  a  fortnight 
later  we  did  meet.  She  at  once  welcomed  me  with 
a  laugh  as  though  I  were  an  old  acquaintance,  and 
my  intimacy  with  her  lasted  so  long,  and  to  so  much 
practical  purpose,  that  it  wrung  from  me  at  last  a 
poem  of  which  the  concluding  lines  were  these: 

Pause  not  to  count  the  cost; 
Think  not,  or  all  is  lost — 
Fly  thou  with  me. 

But  the  "incident,"  in  parliamentary  language, 
was  soon  afterward  "closed,"  partly  because  of  her 

57 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

marriage  to  a  very  sensible  husband,  and  partly 
because,  having  become  acquainted  with  her  sister, 
I  began  to  look  on  the  sister  as  the  more  romantic 
figure  of  the  two. 

The  most  successful  rival,  however,  to  the  excite- 
ments of  young  romance  is  to  be  found  by  some 
natures  in  the  more  complex  stimulations  of  society. 
In  these  the  feminine  element  plays  a  conspicuous 
part;  but  a  part  no  less  conspicuous  is  that  played 
by  the  masculine.  Moreover,  as  the  object  of  the 
social  passion,  unlike  that  of  the  romantic,  is  not 
identified  with  the  vagaries  of  any  one  individual, 
society  for  those  who  court  it  is  a  corporation  that 
never  dies.  It  is  for  each  individual  what  no  one 
individual  ever  can  be — namely,  a  challenge  to 
faculties  or  acquirements  which  are  coextensive 
with  life.  I  will,  therefore,  turn  from  Miss  X,  and 
the  lines  in  which  I  suggested  an  elopement  with 
her  as  a  project  desirable  for  both  of  us,  to  some 
of  the  male  celebrities  whose  names  I  have  just 
mentioned,  and  describe  how  they  impressed  me 
when  I  first  made  their  acquaintance. 

Of  the  well-known  visitors  who  wintered  at  Tor- 
quay none  was  more  punctual  in  his  appearance  than 
Lord  Houghton,  who  found  an  annual  home  there 
in  the  house  of  two  maiden  aunts.  Through  these 
long-established  residents  he  had  for  years  been 
familiar  with  my  family,  and  from  the  first  occasion 
on  which  I  met  him  he  exhibited  a  friendship  almost 
paternal  for  myself.  Lord  Houghton  was  a  man 

58 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

who,  as  Dry  den  said  of  Shad  well,  would  have  been 
the  wittiest  writer  in  the  world  if  his  books  had  been 
equal  to  his  conversation.  Certainly  nothing  which 
he  wrote,  or  which  a  biographer  has  written  about 
him,  gives  any  idea  of  the  gifts — a  very  peculiar 
mixture — which  made  him  a  marked  figure  in  any 
company  which  his  ubiquitous  presence  animated. 
He  knew  everybody  of  note  in  the  fashionable  and 
semifashionable  world,  and  many  who  belonged  to 
neither,  such  as  the  Tichborne  Claimant,  and  Cal- 
craft,  the  common  hangman;  and  his  views  of  life, 
from  whatever  point  he  looked  at  it,  were  expressed 
with  a  weighty  brilliance  or  a  subcynical  humor. 
One  day  when  lunching  at  Chelston  Cross  he  was 
asked  by  Mrs.  William  Froude  if  he  was,  or  had 
ever  been,  a  Mason.  "No,"  said  Lord  Houghton, 
"no.  I  have  throughout  my  life  been  the  victim  of 
every  possible  superstition.  I  am  always  wondering 
why  I  have  never  been  taken  in  by  that."  He  was 

once  sitting  at  dinner  by  the  celebrated  Lady  E 

of  T ,  who  was  indulging  in  a  long  lament  over 

the  social  decadence  of  the  rising  male  generation. 
"When  I  was  a  girl,"  she  said,  "all  the  young  men 
in  London  were  at  my  feet."  "My  dear  lady," 
said  Lord  Houghton,  "were  all  the  young  men  of 
your  generation  chiropodists?"  Mr.  C.  Milnes 
Gaskell  of  Thornes  told  me  of  a  perplexing  situation 
in  which  he  had  once  found  himself,  and  of  how  he 
sought  counsel  about  it  from  Lord  Houghton,  his 
kinsman.  Gaskell's  difficulty  was  this.  A  friend 

$9 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

for  whom  he  was  acting  as  trustee  had,  without 
imposing  on  him  any  legal  obligations  in  the  matter, 
begged  him  with  his  dying  breath  to  carry  out  cer- 
tain instructions.  These  seemed  to  Gaskell  ex- 
tremely unwise  and  objectionable,  "and  yet," 
he  said  to  Lord  Houghton,  "of  course  a  peculiar 
sanctity  attaches  itself  to  dying  wishes.  What 
would  you  do  in  such  a  situation  as  mine?"  For  a 
little  while  Lord  Houghton  reflected,  and  then 
answered,  with  an  air  of  grave  detachment,  "I 
always  tell  my  family  totally  to  disregard  everything 
I  say  during  the  last  six  months  of  my  life." 

Of  his  social  philosophy  otherwise  he  gave  me  in 
the  days  of  my  youth  many  pithy  expositions,  with 
hints  as  to  what  I  should  do  when  I  entered  the 
world  myself.  One  of  his  pieces  of  advice  was 
especially  appropriate  to  Torquay.  This  was  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  old  Mr.  Bevan,  a  lifelong 
intimate  of  his  own.  Accordingly  my  introduction 
to  this  mysterious  personage  was  accomplished. 

Mr.  Bevan  lived  in  a  large  villa  close  to  that  which 
was  occupied  by  Miss  Burdett-Coutts.  Its  dis- 
creetly shuttered  windows,  like  so  many  half-closed 
eyelids,  gave,  when  viewed  externally,  the  impres- 
sion that  it  was  asleep  or  tenantless;  but  to  ring 
the  front-door  bell  was  to  dissipate  this  impression 
immediately.  The  portals  seemed  to  open  by  clock- 
work. Heavy  curtains  were  withdrawn  by  servitors 
half  seen  in  the  twilight,  and  the  visitors  were  com- 
mitted to  the  care  of  an  Austrian  groom  of  the 

60 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE7 AND  LITERATURE 

chambers,  who,  wearing  the  aspect  of  a  king  who 
had  stepped  out  of  the  Almanach  de  Gotha,  led  the 
way  over  soundless  carpets  to  a  library.  This  was 
furnished  with  a  number  of  deep  armchairs;  and  I 
recollect  how,  on  the  first  occasion  of  my  entering 
it,  each  of  these  chairs  was  monopolized  by  a  drowsy 
Persian  cat.  For  a  moment,  the  light  being  dim, 
these  cats,  so  it  seemed  to  me,  were  the  sole  living 
things  present;  but  a  second  later  I  was  aware 
that  a  recumbent  figure  was  slowly  lifting  itself 
from  a  sofa.  This  was  Mr.  Bevan.  His  attire  was 
a  blue  silk  dressing-gown,  a  youthfully  smart  pair 
of  black-and-white  check  trousers,  varnished  boots, 
and  a  necktie  with  a  huge  pearl  pin  in  it,  the  pearl 
itself  representing  the  forehead  of  a  human  skull. 
His  hands  were  like  ivory,  his  face  was  like  a  clear- 
cut  cameo.  With  the  aid  of  a  gold-headed  cane  that 
had  once  belonged  to  Voltaire  he  gently  evicted  a 
cat,  so  that  I  might  occupy  the  chair  next  to  him, 
and  said,  in  the  language  of  BrummeH's  time,  that 
he  was  "monstrous  glad  to  see  me."  He  pointed  to 
objects  of  interest  which  adorned  his  walls  and  tables, 
such  as  old  French  fashion-plates  of  ladies  in  very 
scanty  raiment;  to  musical  clocks,  of  which  several 
were  presents  from  crowned  heads;  to  sketches  by 
d'Orsay,  and  to  framed  tickets  for  Almack's.  "When- 
ever the  dear  lady  next  door,"  he  said,  with  a  glance 
at  the  seminudities  of  the  French  fashion-plates, 
and  alluding  to  Miss  Burdett-Coutts,  "comes  to 
have  a  dish  of  tea  with  me,  I  have  to  lock  those 

61 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

things  up.  I  fear,"  he  said,  presently,  "I'm  in  a 
shocking  bad  odor  with  her  now."  Only  last  night, 
he  explained,  he  had  received  from  one  of  the 
French  Rothschilds  a  magnificent  patt  de  foie  gras; 
and,  having  himself  no  parties  in  prospect,  he  sent 
this  gastronomical  treasure  to  Miss  Coutts,  who 
was  about  to  entertain,  as  he  knew,  a  large  company 
at  luncheon.  There  was  one  thing,  however,  which 
he  did  not  know — the  luncheon  was  to  be  given  to 
the  members  of  a  certain  society  which  had  for  its 
object  the  protection  of  edible  animals  from  any 
form  of  treatment  by  which  they  might  be  needlessly 
incommoded.  What,  then,  were  the  feelings  of  the 
hostess  when  she  suddenly  discovered  that  a  dish 
which,  with  Mr.  Sevan's  compliments,  had  been 
solemnly  placed  before  her  was  the  most  atrocious 
of  all  the  abominations  which  the  company  had 
assembled  to  denounce!  "It  was  sent  back  to  me," 
said  Mr.  Bevan,  "as  though  it  were  the  plague  in 
person.  It's  a  pity  that  you  and  I  can't  eat  it  to- 
gether. I'd  ask  you  to  dinner  if  only  I  were  sure 
of  my  new  cook.  My  last  cook  was  with  me  for 
twenty  years.  Shall  I  tell  you  what  he  wrote  in  a 
letter  when  he  had  left  me  to  join  the  army  during 
the  Franco-German  War?  'Alas!  monsieur,'  he 
said,  'I  must  now  make  sorties  instead  of  entries" 
The  banquet,  however,  which  Mr.  Bevan  had  sug- 
gested— and  it  was  followed  by  others— took  place 
before  many  days  were  over.  The  guests  numbered 
eight  or  nine.  I  cannot  recollect  who  they  were; 

62 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

but  the  cooking,  the  wines,  and  the  decorations  of 
the  table  would  have  satisfied  Ouida  herself.  The 
china,  covered  with  royal  crowns,  was  a  gift  from 
Louis  Philippe.  The  wines,  of  which  the  names 
and  dates  were  murmured  by  the  servants  who  dis- 
pensed them,  seemed  all  to  have  come  from  the 
cellars  of  a  Rothschild  or  an  Austrian  emperor, 
while  every  dish  was  a  delicacy  unique  in  its  com- 
position and  flavor,  the  last  of  them  being  a  sort  of 
"trifle,"  which  the  artistry  of  a  chef  had  converted 
into  the  form  of  a  pope's  tiara.  Mr.  Bevan,  in  short, 
was  a  model  of  the  ultrafastidious  man  of  the  world 
as  he  figures  in  the  novels  of  Bulwer  Lytton  and 
Disraeli.  I  mentioned  this  impression  of  him  some 
time  afterward  to  Lord  Houghton,  and  he  said: 
"There's  a  very  good  reason  for  it.  When  Bulwer 
Lytton  and  Disraeli  entered  the  London  world,  Mr. 
Bevan  was  one  of  their  earliest  friends.  He  privately 
helped  Disraeli  in  social  and  other  ways.  To  him 
Bulwer  Lytton  owed  his  first  personal  knowledge  of 
the  then  world  of  the  dandies;  and  Mr.  Bevan," 
said  Lord  Houghton,  "was  the  actual  model  from 
which,  by  both  these  writers,  their  pictures  of  the 
typical  man  of  the  world  were  drawn." 

My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Bevan,  however,  and 
even  that  with  Lord  Houghton,  were  but  minor 
experiences  as  compared  with  another  meeting  of  a 
similar  yet  contrasted  kind.  At  the  time  of  which 
I  speak  there  was  one  British  author  whose  influence 
as  a  philosophic  moralist  eclipsed  that  of  any  of  his 

63 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

contemporaries.  This  writer  was  Carlyle.  His 
fame  was  then  at  its  highest,  and  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  ultrapolite  drawing  rooms  was  being 
stirred  to  its  well-dressed  depths  by  his  attack  on 
"the  dandies"  in  his  book,  Sartor  Resartus,  which 
many  earnest  and  ornamental  persons  were  accept- 
ing as  a  new  revelation.  I  was  myself  sufficiently 
familiar  with  its  pages,  and,  though  some  of  them 
roused  my  antagonism,  I  could  not  deny  their  genius. 
One  morning,  during  a  brief  visit  to  London,  I  re- 
ceived a  note  from  Mr.  Froude  the  historian,  asking 
me  to  come  to  luncheon,  and  I  duly  arrived  at  his 
house,  not  knowing  what  awaited  me.  I  presently 
learned  that  he  was  going  to  introduce  me  to  Carlyle, 
and,  as  soon  as  luncheon  was  over,  he  walked  me  off 
to  Chelsea.  In  a  fitting  state  of  awe  I  found  myself 
at  last  in  the  great  philosopher's  presence.  When 
we  entered  his  drawing  room  he  was  stooping  over  a 
writing  table  in  the  window,  and  at  first  I  saw  noth- 
ing but  his  back,  which  was  covered  with  a  long, 
shapeless,  and  extravagantly  dirty  dressing  gown. 
When  he  rose  to  meet  us  his  manners  were  as 
rough  as  his  integument.  His  welcome  to  myself 
was  an  inarticulate  grunt,  unmistakably  Scotch  in 
its  intonation;  and  his  first  act  was  to  move  across 
the  room  to  the  fireplace  and  light  a  "churchwarden  " 
pipe  by  sticking  its  head  between  the  bars.  As  I 
watched  him  perform  this  rite,  I  noticed  that  close 
to  the  fender  was  a  pair  of  very  dirty  slippers.  To 
me  these  things  and  proceedings  were  so  many 

64 


THOMAS      CARLYLE 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

separate  shocks,  the  result  of  my  reflections  being 
this:  If  you  represent  fame,  let  me  represent  ob- 
scurity. But  worse  was  still  to  come.  It  was  pres- 
ently proposed  that  we  should  all  go  out  for  a  walk, 
and  as  soon  as  we  were  in  the  open  air,  the  philos- 
opher blew  his  nose  in  a  pair  of  old  woolen  gloves. 
I  here  saw  at  once  an  illustration  of  the  chapter  in 
Sartor  Resartus  in  which  the  author  denounced 
what  he  christened  "The  Sect  of  the  Dandies,"  as 
described  and  glorified  by  Bulwer  Lytton  in  Pelham. 
Illustration  could  go  no  farther. 

The  very  next  famous  man  whom  I  met  after  this 
glimpse  of  Carlyle  I  met  a  little  later  at  Torquay. 
The  famous  man  was  Lord  Lytton  himself.  He  was 
dining  at  Chelston  Cross,  and,  owing  to  some  lady's 
defection,  I  was  actually  his  nearest  neighbor.  I 
saw  in  him  everything  which  the  spirit  of  Carlyle 
hated.  I  saw  in  him  everything  which  was  then  in 
my  opinion  admirable.  All  the  arts  of  appearance, 
conversation,  and  demeanor  which  in  Carlyle  were 
aggressively  absent  were  in  him  exhibited  in  a  man- 
ner perhaps  even  too  apparent.  I  was  indeed,  de- 
spite my  reverence  for  him,  faintly  conscious  myself 
that  his  turquoise  shirt  stud,  set  with  diamonds,  was 
too  large,  and  that  his  coat  would  have  been  in 
better  taste  had  the  cuffs  not  been  of  velvet.  But  it 
seemed  to  me  that  from  his  eyes,  keen,  authoritative, 
and  melancholy,  all  the  passions,  all  the  intellect, 
and  all  the  experiences  of  the  world  were  peering. 
To  have  sat  by  him  was  an  adventure;  to  have 

65 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

been  noticed  by  him  was  not  far  from  a  sacra- 
ment. 

Before  very  long,  and  likewise  at  Chelston  Cross, 
I  became  acquainted  with  his  son,  "Owen  Meredith," 
afterward  Viceroy  of  India.  Having  heard  that, 
like  him,  I  was  touched  with  the  fever  of  the  Muses, 
he  at  once  showed  me  signs  of  an  amity  which  ended 
only  with  his  life.  Treating  me  as  though  I  were  a 
man  of  the  same  age  as  himself,  he  would  take  my 
arm,  when  wandering  in  the  Froudes'  shrubberies, 
and  describe  to  me  the  poems  to  the  production  of 
which  his  future  years  would  be  consecrated,  or 
ask  me  to  confide  to  him  my  corresponding  ambitions 
in  return.  Like  most  poets,  he  was  not  without 
personal  vanities;  but  never  was  a  man  more  free 
from  anything  like  jealousy  of  arrival.  To  praise 
others  was  a  pleasure  to  him  as  natural  as  that  of 
being  praised  himself. 

To  some  of  the  celebrities  associated  with  my 
youthful  days  I  was  introduced,  as  I  have  said  al- 
ready, not  at  Torquay,  but  at  Oxford.  There  was 
one,  however,  whom,  though  essentially  an  Oxonian, 
I  first  met  at  Torquay.  This  was  Jowett,  the  re- 
nowned Master  of  Balliol,  to  whose  college  I  was 
destined  to  be  subsequently  either  a  disgrace  or 
ornament.  Jowett  was  frequently  at  Torquay,  hav- 
ing a  sister  who  lived  there,  and  he  was  specially 
asked  to  luncheon  at  Chelston  Cross  to  inspect  me 
and  see  how  I  should  pass  muster  as  one  of  his  own 
disciples.  His  blinking  eyes,  the  fresh  pink  of  his 

66 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

cheeks,  his  snow-white  hair,  and  the  birdlike  treble 
of  his  voice,  have  been  often  enough  described,  and 
I  will  only  say  of  them  here  that,  when  he  took  me 
for  a  walk  in  the  garden,  I  subconsciously  felt  them 
— I  cannot  tell  why — to  be  formidable.  He  inquired 
as  to  my  tastes  and  interests  with  a  species  of  curt 
benignity ;  but  to  my  interest  in  poetry  he  exhibited 
a  most  disconcerting  indifference,  and  I  felt  during 
the  whole  of  our  interview  that  I  was  walking  with 
a  mild  east  wind.  In  this  he  was  a  marked  contrast 
to  Ruskin,  Robert  Browning,  and  certain  others — 
especially  to  "  Owen  Meredith  " — men  between  whom 
and  myself  there  was  at  once  some  half-conscious 
bond.  There  are  no  estrangements  so  elusive,  and 
yet  so  insuperable,  as  those  which  arise  from  subtle 
discords  in  temperament.  And  yet  in  certain  in- 
dividual acts,  to  which  I  shall  refer  presently,  Jowett 
treated  me,  when  I  was  safely  settled  at  Oxford, 
with  much  sympathetic  good  nature.  But  these 
and  other  Oxford  experiences  shall  be  reserved  for 
another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V 

EXPERIENCES    AT    OXFORD 

Early  Youth  at  Oxford — Acquaintance  with  Browning,  Swinburne, 
and  Ruskin — Dissipation  of  an  Undergraduate — The  Ferment 
of  Intellectual  Revolution — The  New  Republic 

MY  experiences  at  Oxford  I  may  divide  into 
two  groups — namely,   those  belonging  to 
the  social  life  of  an  undergraduate,  and 
those  consisting  of  the  effects — philosophical,  moral, 
or  religious — produced  in  an  undergraduate's  mind 
by  the  influence  of  academic  teaching. 

As  to  my  social  experiences,  my  recollections  are, 
on  the  whole,  pleasurable,  but  they  are  somewhat 
remote  from  anything  that  can  properly  be  called 
scholastic.  They  are  associated  with  the  charm  of 
certain  cloistered  buildings — with  Magdalen  es- 
pecially, and  the  shades  of  Addison's  Walk;  with 
country  drives  in  dogcarts  to  places  like  Witney 
and  Abingdon;  with  dinners  there  in  the  summer 
evenings,  and  with  a  sense  of  being  happily  outside 
the  radius  of  caps  and  gowns;  with  supper  parties 
during  the  race  weeks  to  various  agreeable  ladies; 
and  with  a  certain  concert  which,  during  one  Com- 
memoration, was  given  by  myself  and  a  friend  to  a 
numerous  company,  and  for  which  the  mayor  was 
good  enough  to  lend  us  the  Town  Hall. 

68 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

From  the  incubus  of  mere  collegiate  discipline  I 
was  perhaps  more  free  than  nine  undergraduates 
out  of  ten.  At  the  time  when  I  matriculated  there 
were  within  the  college  precincts  no  quarters  avail- 
able; and  I  and  a  fellow  freshman  who  was  in  the 
same  position  as  myself  managed  to  secure  a  suite 
of  unusually  commodious  lodgings.  That  particular 
partnership  lasted  only  for  a  term,  but  subsequently 
I  and  two  other  companions  took  the  whole  upper 
part  of  a  large  house  between  us.  We  were  never 
what  is  called  "in  college";  we  rarely  dined  in  Hall, 
having,  besides  a  good  cook,  a  very  good  dining  room 
of  our  own,  where  we  gave  little  dinners,  much  to 
our  own  contentment.  We  had,  moreover,  a  spare 
bedroom,  in  which  on  occasion  we  could  put  up 
a  visitor.  One  visitor  who  stayed  with  us  for  some 
weeks  was  Went  worth.  Little  things  remain  in 
the  mind  when  greater  things  are  forgotten;  and 
one  little  incident  which  I  remember  of  Wentworth's 
visit  was  this.  Those  were  days  when,  for  some  mys- 
terious reason,  men,  when  they  smoked,  were  ac- 
customed to  wear  smoking  caps.  Wentworth  had 
one  of  Oriental  design,  which  he  would  somehow 
attach  to  his  head  by  means  of  a  jeweled  pin.  One 
evening  when  he  was  adjusting  it  the  light  caught 
his  features  at  some  peculiar  angle,  and  for  a  fugitive 
moment  his  face  was  an  exact  and  living  reproduc- 
tion of  one  of  the  best-known  portraits  of  Byron. 

Another  incident  belonging  to  this  same  order  of 
memories  occurred  during  one  of  the  race  weeks. 
6  69 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

About  half  past  ten  one  evening,  accompanied  by 
three  companions,  I  was  making  my  way  along  a 
rather  ill-illuminated  street.  My  three  companions 
were  feminine,  and  the  dresses  of  two  of  them — 
triumphs  of  the  latest  fashion — were  calculated  to 
arrest  attention  as  though  they  were  so  much  un- 
dulating moonlight.  Suddenly  I  was  aware  that  a 
strange  voice  was  addressing  me.  It  was  the  voice 
of  a  proctor,  who,  attended  by  several  "bulldogs," 
was  asking  me,  with  a  sinister  though  furtive  glance 
at  the  ladies,  what  I  was  doing,  and  why  I  was  not 
in  cap  and  gown.  I  could  see  in  his  eyes  a  sense  of 
having  very  neatly  caught  me  in  a  full  career  of  sin. 
I  explained  to  him  that  Mrs.  L.,  wife  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  then  university  magnates,  and  her 
two  charming  daughters  had  just  been  so  kind  as 
to  have  had  supper  with  me,  and  that  I  was  seeing 
them  back  to  All  Souls'. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  first  week  or  fortnight 
which  saw  me  and  my  original  housemate  estab- 
lished as  full-blown  freshmen;  I  cannot  for  the  life 
of  me  remember  by  what  steps  we  entered  on  any 
course  of  formal  instruction,  but  he  and  I  were  told 
with  very  surprising  promptitude  that  we  should, 
without  loss  of  time,  give  a  breakfast  to  the  Balliol 
Eight.  We  did  so,  and  never  before  had  I  seen  on 
any  one  matutinal  tablecloth  provisions  which 
weighed  so  much,  or  disappeared  so  rapidly. 

Not  many  days  later  I  found  myself  at  another 
breakfast  table  of  a  very  different  character,  in  the 

70 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

capacity  not  of  host,  but  guest.  The  host  on  this 
occasion  was  Jowett,  who  asked  me  to  breakfast 
with  him  in  order  that  I  might  meet  Browning. 
Browning  by  some  one  or  other — I  think  it  was 
James  Spedding — had  been  shown  certain  manu- 
script verses — precious  verses  of  my  own.  He  had 
sent  me  a  message  of  a  flattering  kind  with  regard 
to  them,  and  he  now  held  out  both  his  hands  to  me 
with  an  almost  boisterous  cordiality.  His  eyes 
sparkled  with  laughter,  his  beard  was  carefully 
trimmed,  and  an  air  of  fashion  was  exhaled  from  his 
dazzling  white  waistcoat.  He  did  not  embarrass  me 
by  any  mention  of  my  own  performances.  He  did 
not,  so  far  as  I  remember,  make  any  approach  to  the 
subject  of  literature  at  all,  but  reduced  both  Jowett 
and  myself  to  something  like  complete  silence  by  a 
constant  flow  of  anecdotes  and  social  allusions, 
which,  though  not  deficient  in  point,  had  more  in 
them  of  jocularity  than  wit.  He  was  not,  perhaps, 
my  ideal  of  the  author  of  "Men  and  Women,"  or 
the  singer  of  "Lyric  Love"  as  "a  wonder  and  a  wild 
desire";  but  there  the  great  man  was,  and  when  I 
quitted  his  presence  and  found  myself  once  more  in 
undergraduate  circles  I  felt  myself  shining  like 
Moses  when  he  came  down  from  the  mount. 

I  was  subsequently  enveloped  in  a  further  re- 
flected glory,  due  also  to  Jowett 's  kindness — a  kind- 
ness which  survived  many  outbursts  of  what  I 
thought  somewhat  petulant  disapproval.  I  received 
from  him  one  day  a  curt  invitation  to  dinner,  and 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

presented  myself,  wondering  mildly  to  what  this 
mark  of  favor  could  be  due.  But  wonder  turned  to 
alarm  when,  on  entering  the  Master's  drawing-room, 
I  discovered  in  the  dim  twilight  no  other  figure  than 
his  own.  His  manner,  however,  though  not  effusive, 
was  civil,  and  was  certainly  fraught  with  no  menace 
of  any  coming  judgment  on  my  sins.  We  exchanged 
some  ordinary  observations  on  the  weather  and  kin- 
dred topics.  Then,  looking  over  his  shoulder,  he 
uttered  a  half-audible  word  or  two,  which,  being 
plainly  not  addressed  to  me,  must  have  been  ad- 
dressed to  somebody  else.  Presently,  out  of  the 
shadows,  a  somebody  else  emerged.  This  was  a 
person  remarkable  for  the  large  size  of  his  head,  his 
longish  hair,  his  insignificant  stature,  and  his  singu- 
larly sloping  shoulders.  I  was  introduced  to  him 
without  catching  his  name.  Dinner  was  announced 
forthwith.  It  was  evident  that,  except  for  myself, 
this  person  was  to  be  the  sole  guest.  In  the  candle- 
light of  the  dinner  table  I  realized  that  this  person 
was  Swinburne. 

The  dinner  passed  off  pleasantly.  Swinburne 
showed  himself  an  intelligent,  though  by  no  means 
a  brilliant,  talker ;  and  as  soon  as  we  had  returned 
to  the  drawing  room,  where  we  drank  a  cup  of 
coffee  standing,  Jowett,  who  had  some  engagement, 
abruptly  left  us  to  finish  the  evening  by  ourselves. 
On  Swinburne  the  effect  of  the  Master's  disappear- 
ance was  magical.  His  manner  and  aspect  began  to 
exhibit  a  change  like  that  of  the  moon  when  a  dim 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

cloud  drifts  away  from  it.  Of  what  we  discussed  at 
starting  I  have  not  the  least  remembrance,  but 
before  very  long  Swinburne  was  on  the  subject  of 
poetry.  His  observations  at  first  consisted  of  general 
criticisms.  Then  he  began  to  indulge  in  quotations 
from  various  poems — none  of  them,  I  think,  from  his 
own;  but,  however  this  may  have  been,  the  music 
seemed  to  intoxicate  him.  The  words  began  to 
thrill  me  with  the  spell  of  his  own  recitation  of  them. 
Here  at  last  I  realized  the  veritable  genius  who  had 
made  the  English  language  a  new  instrument  of 
passion.  Here  at  last  was  the  singer  for  whose  songs 
my  ears  were  shells  which  still  murmured  with  such 
lines  as  I  had  first  furtively  read  by  the  gaslight  of 
the  Brighton  theater.  My  own  appreciation  as  a 
listener  more  and  more  encouraged  him.  If  he 
began  a  quotation  sitting,  he  would  start  from  his 
chair  to  finish  it.  Finally  he  abandoned  the  re- 
straints of  a  chair  altogether.  He  began,  with 
gesticulating  arms,  to  pace  the  room  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  reciting  passage  after  passage,  and  ap- 
pealing to  me,  who  managed  to  keep  pace  with  him, 
for  applause.  ' '  The  most  beautiful  lines  that  Tenny- 
son ever  wrote,"  he  exclaimed,  "were  these,  from 
'Maud': 

"And  like  silent  lightning  under  the  stars 

She  seemed  to  divide  in  a  dream  from  a  band  of  the  blest. 

"Yes,"  he  went  on,  "and  what  did  the  dream- 
Maud  tell  her  lover  when  she  had  got  him?    That 

73 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  salvation  of  the  world  depended  on  the  Crimean 
War  and  the  prosecution  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
policy."  Finally  he  strayed  into  quotations  from 
Sidney  Dobell,  a  writer  now  hardly  remembered, 
with  one  of  which,  describing  a  girl  bathing,  he  made 
the  Master's  academic  rafters  ring: 

"She,  with  her  body  bright  sprinkles  the  waters  white, 

Which  flee  from  her  fair  form,  and  flee  in  vain, 
Dyed  with  the  dear  unutterable  sight, 

And  circles  out  her  beauties  to  the  circling  main." 

He  was  almost  shouting  these  words  when  another 
sound  became  audible — that  of  an  opening  door,  fol- 
lowed by  Jowett's  voice,  which  said  in  high-pitched 
syllables,  "You'd  both  of  you  better  go  to  bed  now." 
My  next  meeting  with  Swinburne  took  place  not 
many  days  later.  He  had  managed  meanwhile  to 
make  acquaintance  with  a  few  other  undergradu- 
ates— all  of  them  enthusiastic  worshipers — one  of 
whom  arranged  to  entertain  him  at  luncheon.  As  I 
could  not,  being  otherwise  engaged,  be  present  at 
this  feast  myself,  I  was  asked  to  join  the  party  as 
soon  as  possible  afterward.  I  arrived  at  a  fortunate 
moment.  Most  of  the  guests  were  still  sitting  at  a 
table  covered  with  dessert  dishes.  Swinburne  was 
much  at  his  ease  in  an  armchair  near  the  fireplace, 
and  was  just  beginning,  as  a  number  of  smiling  faces 
showed,  to  be  not  only  interesting,  but  in  some  way 
entertaining  also.  He  was,  as  I  presently  gathered, 
about  to  begin  an  account  of  a  historical  drama  by 
himself,  which  existed  in  his  memory  only — a  sort  of 

74 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

parody  of  what  Victor  Hugo  might  have  written  had 
he  dramatized  English  events  at  the  opening  of  the 
reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  The  first  act,  he  said, 
showed  England  on  the  verge  of  a  revolution,  which 
was  due  to  the  frightful  orgies  of  the  Queen  at 
"Buckingham's  Palace."  The  Queen,  with  un- 
blushing effrontery,  had  taken  to  herself  a  lover,  in 
the  person  of  Lord  John  Russell,  who  had  for  his 
rival  "Sir  Peel."  Sir  Peel  was  represented  as  plead- 
ing his  own  cause  in  a  passionate  scene,  which  wound 
up  as  follows:  "Why  do  you  love  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell, and  why  do  you  not  love  me?  I  know  why  you 
love  Lord  John  Russell.  He  is  young,  he  is  beautiful, 
he  is  profligate.  I  cannot  be  young,  I  cannot  be 
beautiful,  but  I  will  be  profligate."  Then  followed 
the  stage  direction,  "Exit  for  ze  Haysmarket."  In  a 
later  act  it  appeared  that  the  Queen  and  Lord  John 
Russell  had  between  them  given  the  world  a  daugh- 
ter, who,  having  been  left  to  her  own  devices,  or,  in 
other  words,  to  the  streets,  reappears  as  "Miss 
Kitty,"  and  is  accorded  some  respectable  rank. 
Under  these  conditions  she  becomes  the  object  of 
much  princely  devotion ;  but  the  moral  hypocrisy  of 
England  has  branded  her  as  a  public  scandal. 
With  regard  to  her  so-called  depravities  nobody 
entertains  a  doubt,  but  one  princely  admirer,  of 
broader  mind  than  the  rest,  declares  that  in  spite  of 
these  she  is  really  the  embodiment  of  everything 
that  is  divine  in  woman.  ' '  She  may, ' '  he  says,  ' '  have 
done  everything  which  might  have  made  a  Messalina 

75 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

blush,  but  whenever  she  looked  at  the  sky  she  mur- 
mured 'God,'  and  whenever  she  looked  at  a  flower 
she  murmured  'mother.'" 

The  vivacity  and  mischievous  humor  with  which 
Swinburne  gave  his  account  of  this  projected  play 
exhibited  a  side  of  his  character  which  I  have  never 
even  seen  mentioned,  and  the  appreciation  and  sur- 
prise of  his  audience  were  obviously  a  great  delight 
to  him.  He  lay  back  in  his  chair,  tossed  off  a  glass 
of  port,  and  presently  his  mood  changed.  Somehow 
or  other  he  got  to  his  own  serious  poems ;  and  before 
we  knew  where  we  were  he  was  pouring  out  an 
account  of  Poems  and  Ballads,  and  explaining  their 
relation  to  the  secrets  of  his  own  experiences.  There 
were  three  poems,  he  said,  which  beyond  all  the  rest 
were  biographical:  "The  Triumph  of  Time,"  "Do- 
lores," and  "The  Garden  of  Proserpine."  "The 
Triumph  of  Time"  was  a  monument  to  the  sole  real 
love  of  his  life — a  love  which  had  been  the  tragic  de- 
struction of  all  his  faith  in  woman.  "Dolores" 
expressed  the  passion  with  which  he  had  sought 
relief,  in  the  madnesses  of  the  fleshly  Venus,  from  his 
ruined  dreams  of  the  heavenly.  "The  Garden  of 
Proserpine"  expressed  his  revolt  against  the  flesh 
and  its  fevers,  and  his  longing  to  find  a  refuge  from 
them  in  a  haven  of  undisturbed  rest.  His  audience, 
who  knew  these  three  poems  by  heart,  held  their 
breaths  as  they  listened  to  the  poet's  own  voice, 
imparting  its  living  tones  to  passages  such  as  the 
following^ — 

76 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 
This  is  from  "The  Triumph  of  Time" : 

"  I  will  say  no  word  that  a  man  may  say, 

Whose  whole  life's  love  goes  down  in  a  day; 
For  this  could  never  have  been,  and  never, 
Though  the  gods  and  the  years  relent,  shall  be." 

This  is  from  "Dolores": 

"Oh,  garment  not  golden  but  gilded, 

Oh,  garden  where  all  men  may  dwell, 
Oh,  tower  not  of  ivory,  but  builded 
By  hands  that  reach  heaven  out  of  hell." 

This  is  from  "The  Garden  of  Proserpine": 

"From  too  much  love  of  living, 
From  hope  and  fear  set  free; 
We  thank  with  brief  thanksgiving 
Whatever  gods  may  be 
That  no  life  lives  for  ever, 
That  dead  men  rise  up  never, 
That  even  the  weariest  river 
Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea." 

Then,  like  a  man  waking  up  from  a  dream,  Swin- 
burne turned  to  our  host  and  said,  nervously,  "Can 
you  give  me  another  glass  of  port?"  His  glass  was 
filled,  he  emptied  i,t  at  a  single  draught,  and  then  lay 
back  in  his  chair  like  a  child  who  had  gone  to  sleep, 
the  actual  fact  being,  as  his  host  soon  recognized, 
that,  in  homely  language,  he  was  drunk. 

Drink,  indeed,  was  Swinburne's  great  enemy.  He 
had,  when  I  met  him  at  Balliol,  finished  his  own 
career  there  more  than  twelve  years  ago ;  but  he  had 

77 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

since  then  been  a  frequent  guest  of  the  Master's,  who 
treated  him,  in  respect  of  this  weakness,  with  a 
watchful  and  paternal  care.  When  I  dined  with 
him  at  the  Master's  Lodge  there  was  nothing  to 
tempt  him  but  a  little  claret  and  water.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  afterward  he  was  brilliant  as  the 
burning  bush  till  he -finally  went  in  his  sober  senses 
to  bed.  He  was  not,  I  think,  intemperate  in  the 
sense  that  he  drank  much.  His  misfortune  was  that 
a  very  little  intoxicated  him. 

I  associate  my  early  days  at  Balliol  with  yet  an- 
other memorable  meeting.  One  of  the  most  promi- 
nent and  dignified  of  the  then  residents  at  Oxford  was 
Sir  Henry  Acland,  who,  as  a  Devonshire  man,  knew 
many  of  my  relations,  and  had  also  heard  something 
about  myself.  He  was  a  friend  and  entertainer  of 
men  of  all  sorts  of  eminence;  and  while  I  was  still 
more  or  less  a  freshman  he  invited  me  to  join  at  his 
house  a  very  small  company  in  the  evening,  the  star 
of  the  occasion  being  a  university  lecturer  on  art, 
who  was  just  entering  on  his  office,  and  whose  name 
was  illustrious  wherever  the  English  language  was 
spoken.  He,  too,  knew  something  about  me,  having 
been  shown  some  of  my  verses,  and  to  meet  him  was 
one  of  my  cherished  dreams.  Only  half  a  dozen 
people  were  present,  and  from  a  well-known  portrait 
of  him  by  Millais  I  recognized  his  form  at  once. 
This  was  Ruskin.  He  had  sent  me,  through  Lord 
Houghton  or  somebody,  a  verbal  message  of  poetic 
appreciation  already.  I  was  now  meeting  him  in  the 

78 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

flesh.  The  first  thing  in  him  which  struck  me  was 
the  irresistible  fascination  of  his  manner.  It  was  a 
manner  absolutely  and  almost  plaintively  simple,  but 
that  of  no  diplomat  or  courtier  could  be  more 
polished  in  what  was  at  once  its  weighty  and  its 
winning  dignity.  Such  was  his  charm  for  the  elect ; 
but  here  again  comes  the  question  of  temperament. 
Between  Ruskin  and  Jowett  there  was  a  tempera- 
mental antipathy.  An  antipathy  of  this  kind  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  any  reasoned  dislike,  and 
of  this  general  fact  Ruskin  and  Jowett  were  types. 
I  was  myself  another.  Just  as  Jowett  repelled  so 
Ruskin  attracted  me.  During  my  later  days  at  Ox- 
ford I  grew  to  know  Ruskin  intimately,  and  my 
sympathy  with  his  genius  never  lost  its  loyalty, 
though  for  a  long  time  certain  of  his  ideas — that  is 
to  say,  ideas  relating  to  social  politics — were  to 
me  barely  intelligible,  and  though,  when  they  be- 
came intelligible,  I  regarded  them  as  perversely 
mischievous. 

But  beneath  these  social  experiences,  many  of 
them  sufficiently  frivolous,  and  all  of  them  superficial 
in  so  far  as  their  interest  related  to  individuals,  Ox- 
ford provided  me  with  others  which  went  to  the 
very  roots  of  life.  Of  these  deeper  experiences  the 
first  was  due  to  Jowett,  though  its  results,  so  far  as 
I  was  concerned,  were  neither  intended,  understood, 
nor  even  suspected  by  him. 

The  most  sensational  event  which  occurred  during 
my  first  term  at  Balliol  was  the  suicide  of  one  of  the 

79 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

undergraduates.  He  was  a  poor  Scotch  student  of  a 
deeply  religious  character,  who  had  found,  so  his 
friends  reported,  that  the  faith  of  his  childhood  had 
been  taken  from  him  by  Jowett's  skeptical  teachings, 
and  who  had  ended  by  cutting  his  throat  with  a 
razor  in  Port  Meadow.  Jowett  preached  his  funeral 
sermon — the  only  sermon  which  I  ever,  so  far  as  my 
recollection  serves  me,  heard  preached  in  Balliol 
chapel  by  himself  or  by  anybody  else.  Jowett,  who 
on  the  occasion  was  obviously  much  moved,  chose 
for  his  text  the  story  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery, 
and  of  Christ's  challenge  to  her  judges,  "Which  of 
you  will  dare  to  assault  with  the  first  stone?"  The 
course  of  his  argument  was  curious.  He  began  with 
examining  the  passage  from  the  standpoint  of  verbal 
scholarship,  the  gist  of  his  criticism  being  that  its 
authenticity  was  at  least  doubtful.  From  this  argu- 
ment he  diverged  into  one  of  wider  scope,  insisting 
on  how  much  is  doubtful  in  what  the  Gospels  record 
as  the  sayings  of  our  Lord  generally,  from  which 
illuminating  reflection  he  advanced  to  one  wider  still. 
It  was  as  follows:  Since  we  know  so  little  of  what 
Christ  really  said  about  God,  how  much  less  can  we 
really  know  of  the  nature  of  God  himself;  of  what 
he  loves,  condemns,  or,  in  his  infinite  mercy,  par- 
dons?— the  moral  being  that  we  ought  to  cast 
stones  at  nobody,  and  should  in  especial  refrain 
from  condemning  our  departed  brother,  who,  for 
anything  which  we  knew  to  the  contrary,  might  be 
just  as  acceptable  to  God  as  any  one  of  ourselves. 

80 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

All  my  impressions  of  Jowett  as  a  religious  teacher 
were  summed  up  in  my  impressions  of  that  one  ser- 
mon. Though  his  tone  in  delivering  it  was  one  of 
unusual  tenderness,  there  lurked  in  it,  nevertheless, 
a  mordant  and  petulant  animus  against  the  Christian 
religion  as  a  whole,  if  regarded  as  miraculously 
revealed  or  as  postulating  the  occurrence  of  any 
definite  miracle.  It  was  the  voice  of  one  who,  while 
setting  all  belief  in  the  miraculous  aside,  on  the 
ground  that  it  had  no  evidence  of  a  scientific  kind 
to  support  it,  was  proclaiming  with  confidence  some 
vague  creed  as  unassailable,  the  evidence  in  support 
of  which  was  very  much  more  nebulous,  or  what 
many  would  describe  as  nil.  A  story  used  to  be  told 
about  him  by  which  his  position  in  this  respect  is 
aptly  and  amusingly  illustrated.  He  was  taking  a 
walk  with  an  undergraduate,  who  confessed  to  him 
that  his  deepest  trouble  was  his  failure  to  find  any- 
thing which  accurate  reason  could  accept  as  a  proof 
of  God's  existence.  Jowett  did  not  utter  a  word  till 
he  and  the  young  man  parted.  Then  he  said,  "Mr. 
Smith,  if  you  can't  find  a  satisfactory  proof  of  God's 
existence  during  the  next  three  weeks,  I  shall  have  to 
send  you  down  for  a  term."  Had  I  been  in  the 
young  man's  place  I  should  have  retorted,  "And 
pray,  Mr.  Jowett,  what  satisfactory  proofs  are  you 
able  to  adduce  yourself?" 

But,  in  speaking  of  Jowett  thus,  I  am  not  wholly,  or 
even  mainly,  speaking  of  him  as  a  single  individual. 
I  speak  of  him  mainly  as  a  type,  exceptional  indeed 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

on  account  of  his  signal  intellect,  but  otherwise 
representing  a  moral  and  mental  attitude  which  was 
common  not  only  to  the  teaching  body  of  Balliol, 
but  also  to  the  age  in  general,  in  so  far  as  its  tradi- 
tional temper  had  been  influenced  by  scientific 
knowledge.  Nearly  all  the  Balliol  dons — even  those 
who  never  spoke  of  religion — seemed  to  start  with 
the  same  foregone  conclusion,  that  the  dogmatic 
theology  of  the  churches  was  as  dead  as  the  geo- 
centric astronomy.  They  assumed  this,  just  as 
Jowett  did,  on  what  purported  to  be  scientific 
grounds,  and  yet  when  they  sought,  as  he  did,  to 
put  in  the  place  of  this  some  solemn  system  of  quasi- 
scientific  ethics,  their  attempts  seemed  to  me  to 
exhibit  the  same  absurdity  with  which  Jowett 's  con- 
structive teaching  had  first  made  me  familiar. 
Their  denials  of  everything  which  to  me  had  been 
previously  sacred  appalled  me  like  the  overture  to 
some  approaching  tragedy.  Their  confident  at- 
tempts at  some  new  scheme  of  affirmations  affected 
me  like  a  solemn  farce. 

Some  foretastes  of  the  new  gospel  had,  as  I  have 
said  already,  been  vouchsafed  to  me  at  Littlehampton 
by  Mr.  Philpot.  I  now  saw  what  logically  the  new 
gospel  implied.  The  sense  of  impending  catastrophe 
became  more  and  more  acute.  I  felt  like  a  man  on  a 
ship,  who,  having  started  his  voyage  in  an  estuary, 
and  imagining  that  a  deck  is  by  nature  as  stable  as 
dry  land,  becomes  gradually  conscious  of  the  sway 
of  the  outer  sea,  until,  when  he  nears  the  bar,  showers 

82 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  spray  fall  on  him,  he  perceives  that  the  bows  are 
plunging,  and  at  last  the  percussion  of  waves  makes 
the  whole  vessel  shudder. 

Such,  then,  were  the  effects  on  me  of  the  religious 
liberalism  of  Oxford,  and  in  this  respect,  as  I  now 
see,  looking  backward,  my  condition  was  tempera- 
mentally the  same  as  it  had  been  when  I  was  still 
under  the  tuition  of  superorthodox  governesses.  In 
those  days  any  questioning  of  the  verbal  inspiration 
of  the  Bible  and  the  miraculous  events  recorded  in 
it  seemed  to  me,  as  it  did  later,  to  be  at  once  absurd 
and  blasphemous.  There  was,  however,  even  then, 
something  which  to  me  seemed  no  less  absurd  than 
"the  infidel's"  attack  on  the  dogmas  of  Christian 
orthodoxy — for  I  knew  that  "the  infidel"  existed — 
and  this  was  the  manner  in  which  the  Anglican  clergy 
defended  them. v  I  was  always,  when  a  child,  looking 
forward  each  week  to  the  Sunday  sermon,  in  the  hope 
of  finding  some  portions  of  it  which  I  could  either 
mimic  or  parody.  I  remember  one  sermon  in  par- 
ticular, which  the  preacher  devoted  to  a  proof  of 
God's  existence.  My  own  mental  comment  was, 
"If  anything  could  make  me  such  a  fool  as  to  doubt 
this  self-evident  truth,  your  arguments  and  the  in- 
flections of  your  voice  would  certainly  make  me  do 
so."  I  heard  another  preacher  indulge  in  a  long 
half -hour  of  sarcasm  at  the  expense  of  "the  shallow 
infidel,  who  pointed  to  the  sky  and  said,  'Where 
are  the  signs  of  His  coming?"  In  those  days  we 
were  required  by  a  governess  to  write  out  the  morn- 

83 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  "AND  LITERATURE 

ing's  sermon  as  a  pious  discipline  in  the  afternoon. 
This  sermon  I  reproduced  with  a  series  of  pictures 
in  the  margin,  one  of  which  represented  the  "shallow 
infidel"  exploring  the  sky  through  a  telescope,  which 
he  did  his  best  to  steady  by  holding  it  against  the 
stem  of  a  palm  tree.  And  yet  so  literally  true  did 
all  orthodox  doctrines  seem  to  me  that  I  believed  a 
member  of  my  family  to  have  committed  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost  by  kissing  a  New  Testament 
and  swearing  that  one  of  the  nursery' maids  had  mis- 
pronounced some  word — an  imputation  which  she 
had  indignantly  denied. 

This  dual  mood,  as  renewed  in  me  by  Oxford  in- 
fluences, differed  from  its  earlier  and  childish  form  in 
the  fact  that  my  sense  of  the  absurdities  distinctive 
of  modern  religious  thought  acquired  a  wider  range 
and  went  deeper  than  I  had  at  first  anticipated. 
The  absurdities  of  which  I  was  conscious  as  a  child 
were  those  of  the  arguments  by  which  the  orthodox 
clergy  endeavored  to  defend  doctrines  which  were 
then  for  myself  indubitable.  At  Oxford  I  became 
conscious  of  an  absurdity  to  which  as  a  child  I  had 
been  a  stranger — namely,  the  absurdity  of  the  argu- 
ments by  which  men  who  repudiated  orthodoxy  alto- 
gether endeavored  to  establish  in  its  place  some 
purely  natural  substitute,  such  as  the  "enthusiasm 
of  humanity,"  a  passion  for  the  welfare  of  posterity, 
or  a  godless  deification  of  domestic  puritanism  for 
its  own  sake.  In  addition  to  this  second  absurdity 
a  third  gradually  dawned  on  me.  This  was  the 

84 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

absurdity,  common  to  all  parties  alike,  of  supposing 
that,  if  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  religious  orthodoxy 
were  discredited — namely,  that  the  human  soul  is 
immortal,  that  the  human  will  is  free,  and  that  a 
God  exists  who  is  interested  in  the  fortunes  of  each 
soul  individually — these  doctrines,  in  disappearing, 
would  take  away  with  them  nothing  but  themselves 
alone ;  the  actual  fact  being  that  they  are  known  to 
mankind  generally  not  so  much  in  themselves  as  in 
their  indirect  effects  on  that  plexus  of  moral,  emo- 
tional, and  intellectual  values  on  which  all  our 
higher  interests  in  the  drama  of  life  depend. 

Thus,  in  whatever  direction  I  turned,  I  felt  that, 
if  I  listened  to  the  reasoning  of  liberal  Oxford,  I  was 
confronted  with  an  absurdity  of  one  kind  or  another. 
Of  the  only  liberal  answers  attempted  to  the  riddle  of 
life,  not  one,  it  seemed  to  me,  would  bear  a  moment's 
serious  criticism;  and  yet,  unless  the  orthodox  doc- 
trines could  be  defended  in  such  a  way  that  in  all 
their  traditional  strictness  they  could  once  more 
compel  assent,  life,  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word, 
would — such  was  my  conviction — soon  cease  to  be 
tolerable. 

The  only  human  being  at  that  time  who  held  and 
publicly  expressed  views  similar  to  my  own,  so  far 
as  I  knew,  was  Ruskin.  Of  the  riddle  which  I  found 
so  importunate,  he  did  not  profess  to  have  dis- 
covered any  adequate  solution  of  his  own.  On  the 
contrary,  he  confessed  himself  a  victim  of  a  tragic 
and  desolating  doubt,  but  he  did  boldly  proclaim 
7  85 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

that  until  some  solution  was  found  the  men  of  the 
modern  world  were  of  all  men  the  most  miserable. 
Take,  he  said,  the  belief  in  immortality,  which,  ac- 
cording to  some  men,  is  a  matter  of  mild  indifference. 
It  is  really  a  belief  which  affects  our  whole  concep- 
tion of  the  human  race.  Consider,  he  said,  the  car- 
nage of  war,  with  its  pile  of  unnumbered  corpses. 
It  must  make  some  matter  to  us  whether,  according 
to  our  serious  belief,  each  man  has  died  like  a  dog, 
and  left  nothing  in  the  way  of  a  personal  existence 
behind  him,  or  "whether  out  of  every  Christian- 
named  portion  of  that  ruinous  heap  there  has  gone 
forth  into  the  air  and  the  dead-fallen  smoke  of 
battle  some  astonished  condition  of  soul  unwillingly 
released." 

Here,  it  seemed  to  me,  was  the  true  voice  of  reason 
and  challenging  passion  combined — a  voice  which 
would  not  say  "peace  when  there  was  no  peace," 
and  which  I  missed  altogether  in  Jowett  and  the 
Oxford  liberals  generally.  Jowett  always  regarded 
me  as  a  mere  dilettante  and  an  idler,  who  was  bound 
to  disgrace  Balliol  by  coming  to  grief  in  the  schools, 
and  he  was,  I  think,  mortified  rather  than  pleased 
when  I  won,  in  my  second  year,  the  Newdigate 
prize  for  poetry. 

But  mine  was  certainly  no  mere  idler's  mood;  and 
whatever  Jowett  may  have  thought  of  me  when  he 
heard  of  my  giving  parties  to  ladies,  of  my  driving 
them  out  to  picnics,  or  of  my  concocting  prize  poems, 
my  mental  life  at  Oxford  was  far  from  being  a  life 

86 


JOHN      RUSKiN 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  idleness.  On  the  contrary,  from  my  second  year 
of  residence  onward  I  was  constantly  engaged  in 
tentative  sketches  of  a  book  in  which  I  hoped  some 
day  to  give  a  comprehensive  picture  of  the  moral  and 
intellectual  condition  to  which  my  Oxford  experi- 
ences had  by  that  time  raised  or  reduced  me.  That 
book  was  The  New  Republic,  with  regard  to  which  in 
this  place  a  few  words  may  be  apposite. 

The  form  of  nearly  every  book  is  more  or  less 
fashioned  on  some  model  or  models.  My  own 
models  in  the  case  of  The  New  Republic  were  The 
Republic  of  Plato,  the  Satyr  icon  of  Petronius  Arbiter, 
and  the  so-called  novels  of  Peacock.  All  these 
books  introduce  us  to  circles  of  friends  who  discuss 
questions  of  philosophy,  religion,  art,  or  the  problems 
of  social  life,  each  character  representing  some 
prevalent  view,  and  their  arguments  being  so  ar- 
ranged as  to  have,  when  taken  together,  some  general 
and  coherent  meaning.  Many  of  Peacock's  charac- 
ters are  taken  direct  from  life,  and  in  this  respect  I 
made  myself  a  disciple  of  Peacock.  My  characters 
in  The  New  Republic  were  all  portraits,  though  each 
was  meant  to  be  typical;  but  the  originals  of  some 
— such  as  Lady  Ambrose,  the  conventional  woman 
of  the  world — were  of  no  public  celebrity,  and  to 
mention  them  here  would  be  meaningless.  The 
principal  speakers,  however,  were  drawn  without 
any  disguise  from  persons  so  eminent  and  influential 
that  a  definite  fidelity  of  portraiture  was  in  their 
case  essential  to  my  plan.  Mr.  Storks  and  Mr. 

8? 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Stockton,  the  prosaic  and  the  sentimental  material- 
ists, were  meant  for  Professors  Huxley  and  Tyndall. 
Mr.  Luke  was  Matthew  Arnold.  Mr.  Rose  was 
Pater.  Mr.  Saunders,  so  far  as  his  atheism  was  con- 
cerned, was  suggested  by  Professor  Clifford.  Mrs. 
Sinclair  was  the  beautiful  "Violet  Fane";  and 
finally — more  important  than  any  others — Doctor 
Jenkinson  was  Jowett,  and  Mr.  Herbert  was  Ruskin. 
All  these  people  I  set  talking  in  polite  antagonism  to 
one  another,  their  one  underlying  subject  being  the 
rational  aim  of  life,  and  the  manner  in  which  a  definite 
supernatural  faith  was  essential,  extraneous,  or 
positively  prejudicial  to  this. 

To  all  the  arguments  advanced  I  endeavored  to 
do  strict  justice,  my  own  criticisms  merely  taking  the 
form  of  pushing  most  of  them  to  some  consequence 
more  extreme,  but  more  strictly  logical,  than  any 
which  those  who  proclaimed  them  either  realized  or 
had  the  courage  to  avow.  Thus  when  Doctor 
Jenkinson  descanted  in  his  sermon  on  the  all- 
embracing  character  of  Christianity,  I  made  him  go 
on  to  say  that  "true  Christianity  embraces  all 
opinions — even  any  honest  denial  of  itself."  By  this 
passage  Browning  told  me  that  Jowett  was  specially 
exasperated,  and  Browning  had  urged  on  him  that 
such  a  temper  was  quite  unreasonable.  I  think  my- 
self, on  the  contrary,  that  Jowett  had  an  excellent 
reason  for  it,  this  reason  being  that  Jowett 's  position 
was  false,  and  that  my  method  of  criticism  had 
brought  out  its  absurdity.  Here  indeed  was  the 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIVE  AND  LITERATURE 

method  employed  by  me  throughout  the  whole 
book,  except  in  the  case  of  Ruskin,  and  there  the 
method  was  inverted.  Just  as  I  sought  to  show  that 
Jowett's  principles,  if  carried  far  enough,  ended  in 
absurdity,  so  did  I  seek  to  show  that  Ruskin's  prin- 
ciples, despite  their  superficial  absurdities,  ended,  if 
carried  far  enough,  in  the  nearest  approach  to  truth 
which  under  modern  conditions  of  thought  and 
knowledge  is  possible.  In  my  effort  to  give  point  to 
what  were  really  my  own  underlying  convictions,  I 
wrote  The  New  Republic  six  or  seven  times  over,  and 
in  doing  so  it  became  clearer  and  clearer  to  me  what 
my  own  convictions  were.  They  ended  in  an  appli- 
cation of  the  method  of  a  reductio  ad  absurdum  to 
everything;  and  this  fact  I  finally  indicated  in  the 
words  of  a  Greek  epigram  which  I  placed  as  a  motto 
on  the  title-page:  "All  is  laughter,  all  is  dust,  all  is 
nothingness,  for  all  the  things  that  are  arise  out  of 
the  unreasonable." 

Such  seemed  to  me  the  upshot  of  all  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  teaching  of  Oxford,  of  the  faintly 
hinted  liberalism  of  Mr.  Philpot's  teachings  which 
had  preceded  them,  and  of  my  own  enlarging  experi- 
ences of  male  and  female  society.  That  such  a  con- 
clusion was  satisfactory  I  did  not  for  a  moment 
feel,  but  here  was  the  very  reason  which  urged  me 
on  to  elaborate  it.  The  mood  which  expresses  itself 
in  a  sense  that  life  is  merely  ridiculous  was,  so  my 
consciousness  protested,  nothing  more  and  nothing 
better  than  a  disease,  and  my  hope  was  that  I 

89 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

should  get  rid  of  it  by  expressing  it  once  for  all  as 
pungently  and  as  completely  as  I  could,  after  which 
I  would  address  myself  to  the  project  of  finding  a 
foundation  for  some  positive  philosophy  of  life 
which  should  indeed  be  fortified  by  reason,  but 
against  which  reason  should  not  prevail.  When, 
however,  The  New  Republic  had  been  completed 
and  given  to  the  world,  I  felt  that  my  sense  of  the 
absurdities  of  current  liberal  philosophy  had  not 
even  yet  exhausted  itself;  and  I  presently  supple- 
mented that  work  by  another — The  New  Paul  and 
Virginia,  or  Positivism  on  an  Island,  a  short  satirical 
story  in  the  style  of  Voltaire's  Candide.  This  is  a 
story  of  an  atheistic  professor,  such  as  Tyndall,  who, 
together  with  a  demimondaine,  now  the  wife  of  a 
High  Church  colonial  bishop,  is  wrecked  on  a  desert 
island,  and  there  endeavors  to  redeem  her  from  the 
degrading  superstitions  of  theism  and  to  make  her 
a  partner  with  him  in  the  sublime  service  of  Hu- 
manity— of  that  "Grand  fitre,"  so  he  says  to  her, 
"which,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  has  come  in  the 
course  of  progress  to  consist  of  you  and  me."  The 
New  Paul  and  Virginia  was  followed  some  two  years 
later  by  Is  Life  Worth  Living?  a  formal  philosophical 
treatise,  in  which  the  values  of  life  and  their  connec- 
tion with  religious  belief,  the  methods  of  fiction  being 
abandoned,  were  submitted  to  scientific  analysis. 
These  three  books  represent  the  compound  results 
produced  by  the  liberalism  of  Oxford  on  a  mind 
such  as  my  own,  which  had  been  cradled  in  the  con- 

90 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

servatisms  of  the  past.  But  meanwhile  I  had  left 
Oxford  behind  me,  and  the  death  of  my  father  and 
other  family  events  which  occurred  about  that  time 
left  me  free  to  determine  my  own  movements,  the 
consequence  being  that  thenceforward  the  months  of 
what  is  called  "the  season "  found  me  year  by  year  in 
London  from  Easter  till  the  approach  of  August. 
Of  my  early  experiences  of  London,  and  of  the  kind 
of  life  I  lived  there,  I  will  now  give  some  brief 
account,  not  disdaining  the  humble  aid  of  gossip. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    BASIS    OF    LONDON   SOCIETY 

Early  Experiences  of  London  Society — Society  Thirty  Years  Ago 
Relatively  Small  —  Arts  and  Accomplishments  Which  Can 
Flourish  in  Small  Societies  Only 

COMPARING  London  society  as  it  was  when 
I  first  knew  it  with  what  it  has  since  become, 
I  should  say  that  its  two  most  distinguishing 
features  were  its  then  comparative  smallness  and  its 
practically  unquestioned  position.  Its  position  was 
mainly  founded  on  the  hereditary  possession  of  land, 
its  nucleus  being  the  heads  of  more  or  less  ancient 
families  whose  rent  rolls  enabled  them  to  occupy 
London  houses  and  play  an  agreeable  and  orna- 
mental part  in  the  business  of  entertaining  and  being 
entertained  for  the  few  months  called  "the  season." 
Certain  qualifications  in  the  way  of  family  being 
given,  mere  personal  charm  and  accomplishment 
would  often  secure  for  their  possessors  a  high  place 
in  its  ranks.  Indeed,  such  qualifications  were  by 
no  means  always  necessary,  as  was  shown  in  still 
earlier  days  by  the  cases  of  Moore  and  Brummell; 
but,  on  the  whole,  the  social  conditions  then  prevalent 
in  London  coincided  with  what,  in  the  country,  I 
had  known  and  accepted,  when  a  child,  as  part  of 
the  order  of  Nature.  Of  society  as  represented  by 

92 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

a  definite  upper  class,  the  basis  was  still  inheritance 
in  the  form  of  inherited  land. 

This  was  no  mere  accident.  It  was  a  fact  defi- 
nitely explicable  in  terms  of  statistical  history.  At 
the  time  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  outside  the 
landed  class  there  did  not  exist  in  England  five 
hundred  people  whose  incomes  exceeded  £5,000  a 
year.  The  landed  class  was  typically  the  rich  class 
of  the  country.  The  condition  of  things  since  then 
has  in  this  respect  been  reversed.  During  the  sixty 
years  succeeding  the  battle  of  Waterloo  business 
incomes  exceeding  £5,000  a  year  had  increased  nu- 
merically in  the  proportion  of  one  to  eight,  while 
since  that  time  the  increase  has  been  still  more 
rapid.  On  the  other  hand,  not  only  has  the  number 
of  the  large  agricultural  landlords  shown  no  increase 
whatever,  but  since  the  year  1880  or  thereabouts 
their  aggregate  rental  has  suffered  an  actual  de- 
crease, having  fallen  in  the  approximate  proportion 
of  seventy  to  fifty-two.  This  shrinkage  in  the  for- 
tunes of  the  old  landed  families,  except  those  who 
were  owners  of  minerals  or  land  near  towns,  and  the 
multiplication  of  families  newly  enriched  by  business, 
were,  when  I  first  knew  London,  proceeding  at  a 
rate  which  had  never  been  known  before.  It  was, 
however,  slow  in  comparison  with  what  it  has  since 
become,  and  the  old  landed  families,  at  the  time  to 
which  I  am  now  alluding,  still  retained  much  of  their 
old  prestige  and  power,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
the  leaders  of  both  political  parties  were  still  mainly 

93 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

drawn  from  the  limited  class  in  question.  It  is 
shown  with  even  greater  clearness  by  facts  more 
directly  presenting  themselves  to  the  eye  of  the 
ordinary  observer. 

One  of  these  is  the  aspect  which  thirty  years  ago 
was  presented  by  Hyde  Park  during  the  season  at 
certain  hours  of  the  day.  Thirty  years  ago,  for  an 
hour  or  two  before  luncheon  and  dinner,  its  aspect 
was  that  of  a  garden  party,  for  which,  indeed,  no 
invitations  were  necessary,  but  on  which  as  a  fact 
few  persons  intruded  who  would  have  been  visibly 
out  of  place  on  the  lawn  of  Marlborough  House. 
To-day  this  ornamental  assemblage  has  altogether 
disappeared,  and  its  place  has  been  gradually  taken 
by  a  miscellaneous  crowd  without  so  much  as  a 
trace  even  of  spurious  fashion  left  in  it.  Thirty 
years  ago  Piccadilly  in  June  was  a  vision  of  open 
carriages  brilliant  with  flowerlike  parasols,  high- 
stepping  horses,  and  coachmen,  many  of  whom  still 
wore  wigs.  To-day  these  features  have  been  sub- 
merged by  a  flow  of  unending  omnibuses  which 
crowds  fight  to  enter  or  from  which  they  struggle  to 
eject  themselves.  Fashionable  hotels  have  suc- 
cumbed to  the  same  movement.  Of  such  hotels 
thirty  years  ago  the  most  notable  were  commonly 
described  as  "private" — a  word  which  implied  that 
no  guests  were  received  who  were  not  known  to  the 
landlord  either  personally  or  through  fit  credentials. 
Claridge's,  until  it  was  rebuilt,  was  an  establishment 
of  this  description.  An  unknown  and  unaccredited 

94 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

stranger  could,  by  the  mere  chance  latchkey  of 
wealth,  no  more  obtain  access  to  such  hotels  as 
these  than  he  could  make  himself  to-day  a  member 
of  some  exclusive  club  by  placing  the  amount  of  the 
entrance  fee  in  the  hands  of  the  hall  porter. 

But  society,  as  it  was  in  this  relatively  recent 
past,  did  not  differ  from  that  of  to-day  merely  in  the 
fact  of  having  been  absolutely  less  numerous  and  of 
less  multifarious  origin.  It  differed  in  the  effects 
which  a  mere  restriction  of  numbers,  coupled  with 
inherited  wealth  and  a  general  similarity  of  ante- 
cedents, has  on  the  quality  of  social  intercourse  itself. 
In  societies  which  are  small,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  wealthy  enough  to  secure  for  their  members  as 
a  whole  a  monopoly  of  varied  experience,  and  invest 
them  with  a  corporate  power  which  cannot  be 
similarly  concentrated  in  any  other  cohesive  class, 
these  members  are  provided,  like  the  believers  in 
some  esoteric  religion,  with  subtle  similarities  of 
tastes,  behavior,  and  judgment,  together  with  daily 
opportunities  of  observing  how  far,  and  in  what  par- 
ticulars, individuals  belonging  to  their  class  conform 
or  do  not  conform  to  them.  These  are  constant 
provocations  to  refinements  of  mutual  criticism 
which  give  life  and  conversation  a  zest  not  attainable 
otherwise.  Finally  a  society  which  is  small  enough 
to  possess  such  common  standards,  and  whose  posi- 
tion is  so  well  established  as  to  pervade  it  with  a 
sense  that  no  standards  are  superior  to  its  own, 
tends  to  make  manners  perfectly  simple  and  natural 

95 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which  could  otherwise  be  approached  only  by  con- 
scious effort  or  affectation. 

The  result  of  such  conditions,  in  so  far  as  they  pre- 
vailed in  London  when  London  life  became  first 
familiar  to  myself,  was  that  society,  in  the  narrower 
sense  of  the  word,  was  taken  in  a  spirit  more  serious 
than  that  which  it  excites  to-day.  To  say  nothing 
of  ambitious  hostesses  who  vied  with  one  another 
in  the  entertainment  of  guests  whose  very  names  had 
a  ring  of  importance  when  printed  in  the  Morning 
Post,  society  was,  even  for  men  of  conspicuous 
talent — such,  for  example,  as  Lord  Houghton,  Augus- 
tus Savile,  and  Hayward — a  matter  as  serious  as 
politics,  or  any  war  not  of  the  first  importance.  To 
men  like  Christopher  Sykes  and  Kenneth  Howard  it 
was  very  much  more  engrossing.  Thus,  at  a  lunch- 
eon party  which  I  remember,  a  lady  who  had  just 
reached  London  from  Scotland  asked,  by  way  of 
conversation,  "What  is  going  on  to-night?"  Lord 
Houghton,  who  was  one  of  the  guests,  answered,  with 
all  the  gravity  of  a  judge  summing  up  the  evidence 
at  a  murder  trial :  ' '  The  only  event  of  to-night  is  the 
ball  at  Grosvenor  House.  There's  nothing  else 
worth  mentioning."  "The  ball  of  to-night,"  I  heard 
him  say  on  a  similar  occasion,  "will  be  Lady  Har- 
riet   's.  That  is  sure  to  be  good,  for  Lady 

Harriet  knows  nobody,  so  she  can't  ask  the  wrong 
people,  and  her  list  of  invitations  is  in  the  hands  of 
Augustus  Savile."  One  of  the  cleverest  hostesses  of 

that  time,  Lady  G ,  denounced  to  a  friend  the 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

impertinence  of  a  "society  paper"  which  had  ven- 
tured to  describe  one  of  her  entertainments  as 
"political " ;  and  she  had  actually  been  to  the  trouble 
of  writing  to  inform  the  editor  that  her  parties  were 
fashionable  gatherings  and  not  political  menageries. 
The  then  Lord  Orford,  a  man  of  the  highest  literary 
culture,  who  professed  to  despise  society,  and  very 
rarely  entered  it,  said  that  his  own  idea  of  real  happi- 
ness was  "to  go  nowhere,  and  yet  to  be  asked 
everywhere." 

The  seriousness  with  which  society  was  taken,  and 
the  fear  of  its  judgments  entertained  even  by  many 
of  its  most  conspicuous  members,  was  illustrated  in 
a  way  now  oddly  belated  by  the  celebrated  "Lady 
A.,"  as  she  was  called,  who  occasionally  lent  her 
house  in  Hertford  Street  for  the  month  of  August  to 
her  niece,  Mrs.  Marcus  Hare.  To  this  act  of  kind- 
ness she  attached  one  strict  condition — namely,  that 
the  blinds  of  the  front  windows  should  always  be 
drawn  down,  lest  anyone  should  suspect  that  she 
— Lady  A.  herself — was  guilty  of  remaining  in  London 
when  the  fashionable  season  was  over.  A  well- 
known  social  philosopher,  Lady  E of  T ,  gave 

me  in  my  early  days  an  ultraserious  lecture  on  the 
principles  by  which  a  young  man  should  be  guided 
when  beginning  to  form  acquaintances  in  a  world 
like  that  of  London.  Her  advice  was  almost  iden- 
tical with  that  which,  in  Bulwer  Lytton's  novel, 
Pelham,  is  administered  to  the  hero  by  his  mother. 

"You  should  be  specially  careful,"  said  Lady  E 

97 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

to  me,  "as  to  people  with  whom  you  dine.  Some 
are  remarkable  for  their  chefs,  some  for  the  im- 
portance of  their  company.  There  are  all  sorts  of 
differences  which  a  young  man  has  to  learn.  There 
are  some  evening  parties,"  she  said,  "at  which  it 
will  be  enough  for  him  to  be  merely  seen;  and,  with 
very  few  exceptions" — this  was  her  concluding 
counsel — "you  should  never  be  seen  at  a  ball  in  a 
two-roomed  house — a  house,  for  example,  like  the 
houses  in  Eaton  Place." 

Another  sort  of  social  philosopher,  in  his  own  way 
equally  typical,  was  Hamilton  Aide,  who  united  to 
the  life  of  society  the  cultivation  of  art,  and  was 
equally  serious  in  his  combined  devotion  to  both. 
He  was  a  musician,  a  poet,  a  singer  of  his  own  songs 
in  a  voice  perfectly  modulated.  He  was  also  as  a 
painter  in  water  colors  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
amateurs  of  his  time.  His  landscapes,  indeed,  and 
his  sketches  of  old  houses  and  gardens,  Scotch  castles, 
and  the  seclusions  of  Italian  villas,  were  in  themselves 
poems ;  and  when  he  entertained  the  world— a  world 
very  carefully  chosen — the  attention  of  his  guests 
was  divided  between  his  music  and  his  great  port- 
folios. His  bachelor's  quarters  provided  him  with  an 
appropriate  background.  His  writing  table  was  dom- 
inated by  something  resembling  an  altarpiece — 
namely,  a  large  and  ingenious  rack,  on  which  was 
arranged  a  battalion  of  invitations  to  balls  and 
dinner  parties;  and  his  blotting  book  was  flanked 
by  two  delicate  volumes,  one  being  a  libra  d'oro  in 

98 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  shape  of  a  bulky  visiting  list,  the  other  being  a 
list  of  his  engagements  from  day  to  day.  He  and 
his  accomplishments  were  a  finished  work  of  art 
between  them.  But  in  a  larger  world  his  develop- 
ment would  have  been  no  more  possible  than  the 
development  of  an  orchid  in  the  middle  of  a  crowded 
street. 

And  the  same  is  the  case  with  regard  to  society 
generally.  There  are  certain  accomplishments  which 
a  small  society  tends  to  develop,  and  which  a  larger 
society  does  not.  Among  these  the  art  of  conversa- 
tion is  prominent,  especially  when  it  takes  the  form 
of  wit,  or  becomes  the  vehicle  of  certain  kinds  of 
humor.  I  may  further  illustrate  this  general  obser- 
vation by  mentioning  a  few  individuals,  of  whom 
three  at  least  are  still  well  known  by  name,  not  to 
society  only,  but  also  to  the  world  at  large.  These 
are  Constance,  Duchess  of  Westminster;  Caroline, 
Duchess  of  Montrose,  and  the  Duchess  of  Somerset, 
who,  as  Lady  Seymour,  was  the  heroine  of  the  Eglin- 
ton  Tournament.  These  ladies  were  all  remarkable 
for  the  peculiar  magic  of  their  voices  and  for  a  pe- 
culiar sense  of  humor  which  their  voices  managed  to 
indicate,  and  which  gave  its  quality  to  their  general 
views  of  life.  They  none  of  them  laughed  audibly, 
but  the  voice  of  each  was  a  sort  of  laugh  in  solution, 
and  this  would  produce  a  sense  of  laughter  in  others, 
even  though  in  the  words  of  the  speaker  herself  there 
was  no  special  felicity. 

The  Duchess  of  Montrose,  by  the  mere  tone  in 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which  she  mentioned  a  name,  would  often  convey  a 
whole  criticism  of  the  person  named;  and  though 
her  topics  and  language  were  not  infrequently  of  a 
kind  which  caused  austere  censors  to  reprehend,  and 
even  to  avoid,  her,  yet  if  such  censors  found  them- 
selves by  chance  in  her  company,  they  would  one 
and  all  be  listening  to  her  before  five  minutes  was 
over. 

The  Duchess  of  Somerset's  voice  had  the  same 
spell  of  ambushed  laughter  in  it,  but  she  was  a  far 
greater  mistress  of  the  actual  arts  of  language,  if 
"art"  be  a  word  appropriate  to  the  exercise  of  nat- 
ural genius.  I  was  asked  by  her  daughter,  Lady 
Guendolen  Ramsden,  to  help  her  in  compiling  a 
volume  of  family  memoirs,  which  would,  so  we 
hoped,  have  comprised  a  number  of  the  Duchess's 
letters;  but  most  of  these  had  to  be  discarded  as 
not  suitable  for  publication,  because  of  the  numerous 
sketches  contained  in  them  of  various  friends  or 
connections,  which  were  drawn  with  a  wit  and  pre- 
cision worthy  of  Miss  Austen  herself  in  her  least 
merciful  moments.  One  specimen,  however,  may 
be  given  without  compunction.  She  was  describing 
a  visit  paid  by  her  to  a  well-known  country  house, 
and  mentioned  that  among  the  company  were  a 
prominent  statesman  and  his  wife,  the  former  of 
whom  was  dear  to  caricaturists  on  account  of  his 

superabundant  figure.     "Sir  and  Lady  

are  here,"  she  wrote.  "She  is  expecting ;  but  he 
shows  it  most." 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Here  are  examples  of  conversational  or  descriptive 
art  which,  in  a  large  and  mixed  society,  would,  even 
if  possible,  be  hardly  so  much  as  perceptible.  I  may 
take  as  two  other  examples  Sophy,  Lady  Roden,  and 
Lady  Dorothy  Nevill.  Unlike  Lady  Dorothy,  whose 
chronicled  sayings  have  made  her  a  public  character, 
Lady  Roden  was  known  only  to  a  small  circle  of  in- 
timates. She  was  a  daughter  of  Byron's  celebrated 
friend  Mr.  Hobhouse,  subsequently  Lord  Broughton, 
and  had  received  something  of  a  really  classical  edu- 
cation under  the  semipaternal  auspices  of  Thomas 
Love  Peacock.  Hence  her  conversation  had  a  cer- 
tain natural  crispness  which  enabled  her  to  indicate 
by  touches,  however  light,  any  oddities  of  demeanor 
or  conduct  on  the  part  of  friends  or  acquaintances  to 
persons  whose  standards  were  more  or  less  like  her 
own.  There  was  a  silly  young  woman  who,  after 
several  years  of  matrimony,  was  ambitious  of  push- 
ing her  conquests  beyond  the  matrimonial  limits; 
and  with  this  object  in  view  did  her  best  to  be 
visible  driving  about  with  a  succession  of  guiltlessly 

apathetic  admirers.  "Poor  Mrs.  P ,"  said  Lady 

Roden.  "She  takes  far  more  trouble  in  attempting 
to  ruin  her  reputation  than  most  women  do  to  pre- 
serve it;  but  all  her  attempts  are  vain." 

Lady  Dorothy's  charm  in  conversation  was  due 
to  an  adventurous  whimsicality,  perfectly  natural, 
which  was  absent  from  Lady  Roden's.  She  saw 
everything  through  a  medium  of  unexpected  analo- 
gies. She  was  one  day  asked  in  my  hearing  whether 

8  ioi 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

she  had  enjoyed  herself  at  a  Marlborough  House 
garden  party.  "My  dear,"  she  said,  "half  of  the 
people  there  I  had  never  seen  before  in  my  life,  and 
of  those  whom  I  had  seen,  I  thought  that  half  had 
been  safe  in  Kensal  Green."  On  another  occasion, 
having  been  at  a  fancy  ball — balls  were  a  kind  of 
entertainment  which  she  very  rarely  frequented — 
and  having  been  asked  by  a  friend  for  an  account 
of  it,  she  replied :  ' '  By  far  away  the  most  remarkable 

figure  was  .     There  she  was — I  don't  know 

what  she  called  herself — Diana  in  front,  and  George 
the  Second  behind." 

But  of  the  conversational  art  which  flourishes  in 
small  societies  only  I  could  find  the  best  examples, 
not  among  women,  but  among  the  men  of  what  was 
then  an  expiring  generation — men  whose  manners 
had  been  formed  in  a  society  smaller  still.  Alfred 
Montgomery  was  a  wit  of  this  classical  type,  and 
may  be  taken  as  representing  others,  all  of  whom, 
when  I  knew  them,  were  verging  on  old  age.  These 
men,  though  free  from  any  trace  of  pedantry,  were 
never  guilty  of  slang,  unless  slang  was  used  inten- 
tionally for  the  purpose  of  humorous  emphasis. 
Their  conversation,  if  taken  down  verbatim,  would 
have  afforded  perfect  specimens  of  polished  yet  easy 
English.  A  lady  of  great  wealth  (who  has  long  since 
been  dead,  but  who  shall  nevertheless  be  nameless) 
had  been  for  a  time  under  some  sort  of  social  cloud, 
many  influential  people  having  virtuously  refused 
to  notice  her.  Toward  the  end  of  her  life,  however, 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  most  august  of  all  possible  influences  had  raised 
her  to  a  position  of  such  fashionable  brilliance  that 
a  great  ball  given  by  her  had  been  the  chief  event 
of  a  season.  Lady  Roden  asked  Alfred  Mont- 
gomery some  question  as  to  who  had,  and  who  had 

not,  been  there.  "When  a  woman  like  Mrs. gives 

a  ball  of  that  kind,  it  is,"  he  said,  "an  act  of  revenge 
quite  as  much  as  an  act  of  hospitality.  She  takes 
far  more  pleasure  in  thinking  of  the  people  she  has 
not  asked  than  in  thinking  of  those  she  has." 

Certain  other  examples  of  conversational  art  occur 
to  me  which  I  associate  with  a  form  of  entertainment 
now  a  thing  of  the  past.  Of  London  life  as  it  had 
been  long  before  I  knew  it,  a  notable  feat  ore,  con- 
stantly referred  to  in  memoirs,  had  been  the  break- 
fast party.  It  had  before  my  time  nearly,  but  had 
not  quite,  disappeared.  It  was  so  far  kept  alive  by 
Lord  Houghton,  at  all  events,  that  a  breakfast  at 
his  house  in  Bruton  Street  is  one  of  my  own  early 
recollections.  The  repast  began  at  ten  and  lasted 
for  half  the  morning.  There  must  have  been  about 
twenty  guests.  Two  of  them  were  "lions,"  whose 
hair  was  more  remarkable  than  their  speech.  The 
rest  were  men  of  some  sort  of  social  eminence,  who 
seemed  to  find  the  occasion  not  wholly  congenial; 
and,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  host,  conversation 
had  a  tendency  to  languish  till  a  topic  turned  up 
which  was  then  attracting  public  notice.  This  topic 
roused  one  of  the  guests — a  seasoned  man  of  the 
world — from  a  mood  of  apparent  apathy  into  one 

103 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  such  humorous  animation  that  soon  the  rest  of 
the  company  were  holding  their  breaths  to  listen  to 
him.  The  topic  in  question  was  a  volume  of  scan- 
dalous memoirs  which  had  lately  been  published 
by  Rosina,  wife  of  the  first  Lord  Lytton,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  attacking  a  husband  from  whom  she  had 
long  been  separated.  The  guest  to  whom  I  am  now 
alluding  caught  the  attention  of  everybody  by  con- 
fessing to  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  ways 
of  this  caustic  lady,  and  proceeded  to  illustrate  them 
by  a  series  of  amusing  anecdotes  of  which  I  recollect 
the  following: 

Bulwer  Lytton,  as  he  then  was,  was  candidate  for 
one  of  the  divisions  of  Hertfordshire,  and  speeches 
were  being  delivered  from  the  hustings  by  support- 
ers of  local  influence — among  others  by  Lord  Cowper. 
Lord  Cowper  was  still  speaking  when  something  ap- 
peared at  his  elbow  in  the  likeness  of  the  candidate's 
wife.  "Now,  Billy  Cowper,"  she  said,  "we've  lis- 
tened to  you  long  enough.  Sit  down,  and  let  me 
speak.  You  propose,  gentlemen,  to  send  my  hus- 
band to  Parliament.  I  am  here  to  tell  you  that 
Parliament  is  not  the  proper  place  for  him.  His 
proper  place,"  she  said,  pointing  to  the  ground, 
"is  below;  and  when  you  have  sent  him  there,  he 
will  learn  something  of  what  he  at  present  knows 
nothing.  That  something  is  Justice." 

On  another  occasion,  speaking  in  more  moderate 
tones,  she  observed  to  a  circle  of  acquaintances: 
"My  husband  is  a  man  who  has  been  born  out  of 

104 


his  due  time.  He  ought  to  have  been  born  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago.  Had  he  been  born  then,  he 
would  have  been  Judas  Iscariot.  He  would  have 
betrayed  his  Master;  he  would  have  taken  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver;  but  then  he  would  not  have  hanged 
himself — far  from  it.  He  would  have  sat  down  and 
written  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians." 

On  another  occasion  she  told  the  following  story 
of  him.  He  was,  so  she  said,  in  London,  and  she, 
having  been  left  in  the  country,  had  written  to  pro- 
pose joining  him.  He  had  at  once  replied  begging 
her  not  to  do  so,  but  to  leave  him  a  little  longer  in 
the  enjoyment  of  philosophic  solitude.  "When  I 
heard  that" — so  she  confided  to  a  friend — "I  set 
off  for  London  instantly ;  and  there  I  found  him  with 
Philosophic  Solitude,  in  white  muslin,  on  his  knee." 

"Perhaps,"  added  the  narrator,  "even  less  agree- 
able to  the  delinquent  would  have  been,  had  he 
heard  it,  her  description  of  his  physical  appearance. 
Alluding  to  the  fact  that  his  head  was  undoubtedly 
too  large  for  his  body,  she  said,  'My  husband  has 
the  head  of  a  goat,  and  he  has  the  body  of  a  grass- 
hopper."1 

But  of  all  the  men  who,  in  the  way  of  conversa- 
tional wit  or  otherwise,  figure  in  my  memory  as 
types  of  a  now  vanished  generation,  the  most  re- 
markable still  remains  to  be  noticed.  This  was  the 
second  Duke  of  Wellington.  Even  to  those  who 
knew  him  only  by  sight  he  was  memorable,  on  ac- 
count of  his  astonishing  likeness  to  the  portraits 

105 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

or  statues  of  his  father.  He  had  not,  or  he  had  not 
chosen  to  cultivate,  the  talents  which  mainly  lead 
to  distinction  in  public  life,  but  by  the  small  circle 
of  those  who  were  intimate  with  him  during  his  later 
days  he  was  known  for  a  humor,  a  polished  wit,  and 
a  shrewdness  which  made  him,  of  all  possible  com- 
panions, one  of  the  most  delightful.  I  knew  him  in- 
timately myself  as  far  as  my  age  permitted.  I  often 
stayed  with  him  at  Strathfieldsaye,  not  only  when 
he  had  parties,  but  also  when,  as  sometimes  hap- 
pened, we  were  together  for  a  week  alone.  On  these 
latter  occasions  I  had  all  the  mornings  to  myself, 
and  every  afternoon  I  took  with  him  long  walks, 
during  which  he  poured  forth  his  social  or  other 
philosophies,  or  else  told  me  stories  of  his  father 
so  pointed  and  numerous  that,  had  I  written  them 
down,  I  might  then  have  compiled  a  life  of  him  which 
would  form  a  very  interesting  supplement  to  those 
which  exist  already.  I  never,  in  the  course  of  these 
walks,  experienced  a  dull  moment. 

The  only  great  entertainment  at  which  I  ever 
encountered  him  was  a  dinner  party  of  his  own  given 
at  Apseley  House.  During  one  of  such  visits  which 
I  paid  him  at  Strathfieldsaye  he  told  me  that  very 
soon  he  would  have  to  give  a  party  in  London  in 
honor  of  the  King  of  the  Belgians.  The  party  was 
to  be  a  large  dinner,  and  he  asked  me  to  be  one  of  the 
company.  The  time  arrived.  The  King  of  the  Bel- 
gians for  some  reason  failed  to  come,  but  everything 
had  heen  arranged  in  an  appropriate  manner  for 

106 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

his  reception.  As  a  spectacle  the  table  was  note- 
worthy. It  was  covered  with  gold  plate — a  his- 
toric monument  to  the  great  hero  of  Waterloo— 
which  consisted  of  figures  of  soldiers,  horses,  palm 
trees,  camels,  artillery,  and  other  military  objects 
symbolical  of  his  various  campaigns ;  and  gold  plate 
at  intervals  all  round  the  table  was  supplemented 
by  triumphal  wreaths.  The  duke  told  me  afterward 
that  all  these  decorations  were  due  to  his  own  for- 
getfulness.  He  had  for  years  been  accustomed  to 
celebrate  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo 
by  a  banquet  to  certain  officers  who  had  been  present 
at  it,  and  who  still  survived;  but  the  number  of 
these  had  already  been  so  reduced  that  he  had  de- 
termined to  discontinue  the  celebration.  In  fixing, 
however,  a  day  for  the  dinner  now  in  question,  he 
had  entirely  forgotten  that  the  date  ultimately 
chosen  was  none  other  than  the  day  of  the  great 
battle.  His  servants  had  concluded  that,  in  honor 
of  Belgian  royalty,  he  was  giving  one  more  repetition 
of  the  Waterloo  banquets  of  the  past.  Everything 
had  been  arranged  accordingly ;  and  I  was  thus  pres- 
ent at  a  function  which  will  never  take  place  again. 

But  it  was  not  at  such  functions  that  his  real 
character  displayed  itself.  This  only  came  out  in 
intercourse  of  a  much  more  private  kind,  as  would 
happen  at  Strathfieldsaye  when  he  entertained  par- 
ties of  not  more  than  ten  people.  When  I  was 
present  on  such  occasions  I  was  usually  the  youngest 
— by  far  the  youngest — member  of  the  company. 

107 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Of  the  rest  I  may  mention  as  examples  Lady  Dorothy 
Nevill,  Alfred  Montgomery,  Sir  Hastings  Doyle, 
Lord  Calthorpe,  Sir  St.  George  Foley,  Lady  Chester- 
field, and  Mr.  Newtons,  the  courtly  police  magistrate, 
called  by  his  friends  "The  Beak."  And  here — to 
repeat  in  substance  the  observation  which  I  have 
made  already — what  always  struck  me  was  the  far 
greater  polish  of  manner  that  prevailed  among  these 
my  elders  than  any  which  was  cultivated  among  my 
own,  the  then  rising,  generation.  In  such  an  atmos- 
phere the  Duke's  special  gifts  were  at  home.  He 
never  strained  after  effect.  His  words  seemed  to 
crystallize  into  wit  or  poignant  humor  before  he 
had  time  to  reflect  on  what  he  was  going  to  say. 
But  these  qualities  were  perhaps  seen  at  their  best 
in  tete-a-te'te  encounters  or  correspondence.  At  all 
events,  it  is  from  such  occurrences  that  illustrations 
of  them  can  be  most  readily  drawn. 

He  had  often  spoken  to  me  of  his  dislike  of  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  jobbery,  and  this  was  once 
brought  out  in  a  very  characteristic  way  by  a  pas- 
sage at  arms  between  himself  and  Lady  St.  Helier. 
Lady  St.  Helier  had  written  to  him  to  ask  him  if, 
as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Middlesex,  he  would  make 
one  of  her  friends  a  magistrate.  The  duke  promptly 
replied  that  her  friend  was  an  entire  stranger  to 
him,  and  that  he  never  made  appointments  of  that 
kind  as  a  favor  to  some  third  party.  There  the 
matter  rested  for  a  week  or  two,  at  the  end  of  which 
period  she  received  the  following  note  from  him: 

108 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

DEAR  LADY  ST.  HELIER. 

You  have  treated  me  extremely  ill.  I  have  made  inquiries 
about  your  friend,  and  I  find  he  is  part-proprietor  of — here  he 
named  a  certain  place  of  amusement — which  I  learn  is  frequently 
used  as  a  place  for  assignations  of  a  very  reprehensible  kind. 

Lady  St.  Helier's  immediate  reply  was  this : 

MY  DEAR  DUKE. 

I  have  nothing  more  to  say.  You  are  acquainted  with  such 
matters  so  much  better  than  I  am. 

Not  long  afterward  he  met  her  on  somebody's  door- 
step, and  she,  who  was  taking  her  departure,  greeted 
him  with  some  slight  frigidity.  He  merely  looked 
at  her  with  a  momentary  twinkle  in  his  eye,  and 
said,  "I  think  you  had  me  there."  Some  days  later 
she  received  yet  another  letter  from  him,  which  con- 
sisted of  these  words: 

DEAR  LADY  ST.  HELIER. 
The  deed  is  done.     God  forgive  me. 

A  further  encounter  took  place  of  something  the 
same  kind — the  duke  himself  told  me  of  this — 
from  which  he  emerged  the  victor.  He  had,  he  said, 
received  a  letter  from  Lady  Herbert  of  Lee,  in  which 
she  begged  liim  to  contribute  £100  toward  the  total 
required  for  the  restoration  of  some  Catholic  church, 
and  his  answer  had  been  as  follows : 

DEAR  LADY  HERBERT. 

I  shall  be  very  happy  to  give  you  the  sum  you  name,  for  a 
purpose  so  excellent  as  yours.  At  the  same  time  I  may  say 

109 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

that  I  am  myself  about  to  restore  the  Protestant  church  at 
Strathfieldsaye,  and  I  do  not,  doubt  that  you  will  aid  me  by 
sending  me  a  similar  sum.  Only,  in  that  case,  I  think  no 
money  need  pass  between  us. 

In  a  kindred  vein  was  his  answer  to  another  ap- 
plication, addressed  to  him,  in  formal  terms,  by  a 
committee  of  the  inhabitants  of  Tiverton.  When 
the  first  duke  was  merely  known  as  a  soldier,  the 
Tivertonians  had  begun  to  erect,  on  a  neighboring 
hill  near  Wellington,  a  monumental  column  in  his 
honor;  but  subsequently,  when  he  came  to  show 
himself  to  the  British  public,  not  as  a  great  general, 
but  as  an  obstinate  and  intolerable  Tory,  the  Radical 
Tivertonians  refused  to  carry  on  the  work  farther. 
The  column  was  left  unfinished,  as  it  stands  at  the 
present  day;  and  the  second  duke,  many  years 
later,  was  petitioned,  for  the  credit  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, to  finish  it  at  his  own  cost.  His  answer  to  the 
petitioners  was,  so  he  told  me,  this: 

GENTLEMEN. 

If  I  were  to  finish  that  monument  it  would  be  a  monument  to 
nothing.  As  it  stands,  it  is  a  monument  to  your  own  ingratitude. 

Strathfieldsaye  may  have  been  in  old  days  the 
scene  of  many  political  incidents.  The  latest  was 
one  at  which  I  myself  was  present.  Trie  heroine  of 
it  was  Miss  Meresia  Nevill,  Lady  Dorothy's  daugh- 
ter, who  afterward  achieved  renown  as  a  luminary 
of  the  Primrose  League.  She  was  then  in  her 
novitiate  only,  and  the  duke  one  morning  whispered 
to  her  that  he  would  give  her  a  lesson  in  oratory. 

no 


I  was  asked  to  be  present  at  it,  but  otherwise  it  was 
to  be  strictly  secret.  Accordingly  after  breakfast 
she,  I,  and  the  duke  met  by  appointment  in  the 
library.  The  doors  were  locked,  and  Miss  Nevill, 
who  had  brought  some  memoranda  with  her  scribbled 
on  a  half -sheet  of  letter  paper,  was  told  by  the  duke 
to  take  her  stand  on  the  hearth  rug  and  give  him  a 
specimen  of  her  powers  by  declaiming  what  she  pro- 
posed to  say,  he  himself  being  seated  on  a  sofa 
watching  her.  "Now,"  he  said,  "begin."  Bashfully 
consulting  her  notes,  and  speaking  with  apologetic 
rapidity,  Miss  Nevill  began  to  murmur,  "My  lords, 
ladies  and  gentlemen."  "No!"  ejaculated  the  duke; 
"my  dear  young  lady,  no!  Mouth  it  out  like  this: 
"My  lords — ladies — and — gentlemen.  Don't  say  it 
as  if  you  were  saying  your  prayers."  In  this  humor- 
ous but  most  admirable  advice  there  was  no  great 
verbal  brilliance;  but  his  tendency  to  verbal  bril- 
liance showed,  on  one  occasion  at  all  events,  how 
capable  it  was  of  translating  itself  into  the  highest 
form  of  literary  art.  A  favorite  amusement  of  his 
was  making  translations  from  Horace.  Among  the 
passages  which  had  specially  provoked  this  enterprise 
was  one  the  Latin  of  which  is  so  terse  and  pungent 
that  it  has  often  been  pronounced  untranslatable. 
It  is  the  passage  in  which  Horace  describes  true  hap- 
piness as  that  of  the  man  who,  looking  back  from 
to-morrow,  is  able  to  say,  "I  was  really  alive  all 
yesterday."  Dryden's  pithy  version  of  it  is  to  the 
effect  that  the  sole  true  happiness  is  that  of  the  man : 

in 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Who,  secure  at  eve,  can  say, 

"To-morrow,  do  thy  worst,  for  I  have  lived  to-day." 

The  duke's  version  was  on  a  yet  higher  level  than 
this,  embodying  in  it  a  concentrated  pungency  and 
a  curiosa  felicitas  which  were  quite  in  the  vein  of 
Horace,  but  contain  a  thought  not  present  in  the 
original.  They  were  comprised  in  these  few  words: 

Happy  if  only  I  enjoy 
My  rival's  envy  .for  a  day. 

It  is  true  this  specimen  of  the  duke's  wit  in  liter- 
ature does  not  bear  directly  on  the  question  of  wit 
in  social  conversation ;  and  yet  it  may  lead  the  mind 
to  questions  which  are  very  closely  akin  to  it.  The 
felicity  of  the  duke's  translation  has  a  very  close 
resemblance  to  the  curiosa  felicitas  of  Pope — for  in- 
stance, in  his  "Characters  of  Women"  and  his  cele- 
brated satire  on  Addison.  Nearly  all  Pope's  satires 
are  addressed,  if  not  to  a  small  society,  yet  at  all 
events  to  a  small  public,  and  outside  that  limited 
body  they  would  have  neithei  vogue  nor  meaning. 


CHAPTER  VII 

VIGNETTES    OF    LONDON    LIFE 

Byron's  Grandson  and  Shelley's  Son— The  World  of  Balls— The 
"Great  Houses,"  and  Their  New  Rivals — The  Latter  Criticized 
by  Some  Ladies  of  the  Old  Noblesse — Types  of  More  Serious 
Society — Lady  Marian  Alford  and  Others — Salons  Exclusive 
and  Inclusive — A  Clash  of  Two  Rival  Poets — The  Poet  Laureate 
— Auberon  Herbert  and  the  Simple  Life — Dean  Stanley — 
Whyte  Melville— "Ouida"—" Violet  Fane" — Catholic  Society 
— Lord  Bute — Banquet  to  Cardinal  Manning — Difficulties  of 
the  Memoir- writer — Lord  Wemyss  and  Lady  P Indis- 
cretions of  Augustus  Hare — Routine  of  a  London  Day — The 
Author's  Life  Out  of  London 

THE  few  portraits  and  anecdotes  which  I  have 
just  sketched  or  recorded  are  sufficient,  let 
me  say  once  more,  to  illustrate  two  general 
facts.  They  indicate  the  way  in  which  society 
owes  much  of  its  finer  polish  to  it.  They  emphasize 
the  fact  that,  when  I  first  knew  it  myself,  it  was 
very  much  smaller  than  it  has  since  then  become, 
and,  though  divided  into  sections  even  then,  was 
very  much  more  cohesive.  Let  me  pass  from  this 
latter  fact  to  some  of  my  own  experiences  as  con- 
nected with  it. 

For  young  men  who  are  already  equipped  with 
influential  friends  or  connections,  a  society  which  is 
relatively  small  and  more  or  less  cohesive  is  in  some 
ways  more  easy  of  access  than  one  which  is  more 
numerous,  but  in  which,  unless  their  means  are 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ample  enough  to  excite  the  competitive  affection  of 
mothers,  they  are  more  likely  to  be  lost.  In  this 
respect  I  may  look  on  myself  as  fortunate,  for  my 
circle  of  acquaintances  very  rapidly  widened  as  soon 
as,  having  done  with  Oxford,  I  began  to  stay  in 
London  for  more  than  a  week  at  a  time,  and  secured 
a  habitation,  more  or  less  permanent,  of  my  own. 
While  I  was  first  looking  about  for  one  which  I 
thought  would  be  suitable,  Wentworth  returned  the 
hospitality  which  I  had  previously  shown  him  at 
Oxford  by  putting  me  up  for  a  fortnight  at  his  house 
on  the  Chelsea  Embankment,  and  during  this  visit 
an  incident  took  place  which,  if  merely  judged  by 
the  names  of  the  few  persons  concerned  in  it,  might 
be  thought  picturesquely  memorable. 

Students  of  Robert  Browning  may  recollect  a 
short  poem  of  his  which  begins  with  the  following 
lines: 

And  did  you  once  see  Shelley  plain? 

And  did  he  stop  and  speak  to  you? 
And  did  you  answer  him  again? 

How  strange  it  seems  and  true! 

My  own  answer  would  be,  I  did  not  see  Shelley 
plain,  but  I  did  the  next  thing  to  it.  Sir  Percy  and 
Lady  Shelley — the  poet's  son  and  daughter-in-law 
— were  Wentworth's  near  neighbors,  though  he  never 
had  met  either  of  them.  Lady  Shelley  had  been  an 
old  friend  of  my  mother's,  and  I  took  him  one  day 
to  tea  with  her.  To  the  wife  of  Shelley's  son  I 

introduced  Byron's  grandson.     What  event  could 

114 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

seem  more  thrilling  to  any  one  whose  sentiments 
were  attuned  to  the  music  of  Browning's  verses? 
What  really  happened  was  this:  Lady  Shelley  said 
to  me  some  pleasant  things  about  my  mother;  we 
all  of  us  lamented  the  prevalence  of  the  east  wind, 
and  then,  having  recommended  her  crumpets,  she 
discussed  with  Wentworth  the  various  large  houses 
lately  built  in  the  neighborhood.  At  this  juncture 
the  drawing-room  door  opened  and  the  son  of  the 
author  of  "Prometheus  Unbound"  entered.  He  was 
a  fresh-looking  country  gentleman,  whose  passion 
was  private  theatricals.  Close  to  his  own  house  he 
had  built  a  little  private  theater,  and  the  conver- 
sation turned  thenceforward  on  the  question  of 
whether  a  license  would  be  necessary  if  the  public 
were  admitted  by  payment  to  witness  the  per- 
formance of  a  farce  in  the  interest  of  some  deserving 
charity. 

By  the  time  I  left  Wentworth 's  roof  I  had  arranged 
to  share  with  two  Catholic  friends  a  suite  of  rooms 
at  a  private  hotel  in  Dover  Street.  Both  belonged 
to  well-known  Catholic  families,  and  had  ready  ac- 
cess to  the  world  of  Catholic  gayety,  especially  in  so 
far  as  this  was  represented  by  balls.  One  of  them, 
through  his  skill  as  a  dancer  and  his  buoyant  vivacity 
in  conversation,  was  in  much  wider  request.  By  the 
agency  of  Augustus  Savile  and  others — of  "social 
fairies"  (as  Lord  Beaconsfield  called  them),  such  as 
the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  whom  I  had  known  well 
at  Torquay — cards  for  balls  and  parties,  in  quickly 

"5 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

increasing  numbers,  found  their  way  to  myself  like- 
wise; while  in  other  directions  doors  were  opened 
also  which  led  to  a  world  of  a  more  serious  aspect 
and  character. 

Of  balls  I  need  say  little  except  to  observe  that  I 
went  to  a  great  many,  and  so  far  followed  the  advice 

of  Lady  E of  T that  I  did  not  often  find 

myself  at  a  ball  "in  a  two-roomed  house."  For  this 
the  principal  reason  was  that,  even  from  my  child- 
hood, I  was  wanting  in  any  inclination  to  dance, 
and  thus  preferred  many-roomed  houses  in  which 
persons  who  were  so  disposed  could  sit  out  and  con- 
verse, the  very  fact  that  a  ball  was  in  progress  being 
hardly  so  much  as  perceptible.  In  this  connection 
I  may  observe  that,  during  my  earlier  days,  the 
principal  balls  were  still  to  a  certain  extent  those 
which  were  given  in  houses  famous  for  their  traditions 
and  their  magnitude,  such  as  Devonshire  House, 
Bridgwater  House,  Stafford  House,  and  so  forth; 
but  already  things  were  in  this  respect  changing. 
Newly  established  families,  or  families  in  the  act  of 
establishing  themselves,  had  begun  to  outdo  the 
"great  houses"  in  their  lavish  expenditure  on  this 
kind  of  entertainment.  The  center  of  social  gravity 
was  in  this  respect  being  shifted.  As  an  illustration 
of  this  fact  I  remember  some  curt  observations  made 
by  two  ladies  who  were  in  the  act  of  bringing  out 
their  daughters.  Both  belonged  to  families  of  his- 
torical and  high  distinction,  but  their  means  were 
not  equal  to  their  dignity.  One  of  them  said,  "If 

116 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

I  want  to  take  out  my  daughter,  I  have  generally 
to  go  to  the  house  of  someone  who  is  not  a  gentle- 
man." Another  said:  "I  don't  care  for  London  any 
longer.  It  seems  that  the  only  people  who  are 
giving  balls  to-day  are  people  whose  proper  business 
would  be  to  black  my  boots."  Utterances  of  this 
kind,  though  of  course  greatly  exaggerated,  were 
straws  which  showed  the  direction  in  which  the 
wind  was  blowing. 

Let  me  turn  from  the  world  of  balls  to  a  milieu 
which  is  less  frivolous,  and  take  certain  ladies  as 
types  of  tendencies  which  then  prevailed  in  it.  It 
will  be  enough  to  mention  four,  whose  houses  repre- 
sented society  as,  in  some  ways,  at  its  best.  I  refer 
to  Mrs.  William  Lowther,  Lady  Marian  Alford, 
Louisa,  Lady  Ashburton  (whom  I  thus  group  to- 
gether because  their  isolated  and  commanding  dwell- 
ings stood  practically  in  the  same  row),  and  Lady 
Somers.  All  these  were  women  of  the  highest  cul- 
tivation. They  were  devoted  to  art.  Mrs.  Lowther 
was  herself  an  artist.  Mrs.  Lowther  and  Lady 
Ashburton,  though  thorough  women  of  the  world 
with  regard  to  their  mundane  company,  were  re- 
markable for  a  grave  philanthropy  which  they  sacri- 
ficed much  to  practice.  Indeed  at  some  of  their 
entertainments  it  was  not  easy  to  tell  where  society 
ended  and  high  thinking  began.  This  could  not  be 
said  of  Lady  Somers  or  of  Lady  Marian.  Though 
in  artistic  and  intellectual  taste  they  equaled  the 
three  others,  the  guests  whom  they  collected  about 
9  117 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

them  were  essentially  chosen  with  a  view  to  the 
social  charm  which  wit,  manners,  or  beauty  enabled 
them,  as  if  by  magic,  to  communicate  to  the  passing 
moment.  And  here  it  may  be  observed  conversely 
that  in  a  world  like  that  of  London  the  art  of  society 
depends  not  on  choice  only,  but  also,  and  no  less, 
on  an  equally  careful  rejection,  and  is  for  that  reason 
beset  by  peculiar  and  varying  difficulties.  Of  these 
difficulties  Lady  Marian  herself  once  spoke  to  me. 
They  had,  she  said,  been  lately  brought  home  to 
her  by  certain  of  her  friends  who  had  been  urging 
her  to  give  a  ball — a  suggestion  which,  for  the  fol- 
lowing reasons,  she  found  herself  unwilling  to  enter- 
tain. "It  is  impossible,"  she  said,  "to  give  a  suc- 
cessful ball  in  London  without  being  very  ill-natured 
to  a  large  number  of  people.  Many  of  those  who 
would  think  they  had  a  right  to  be  asked  would — 
though  on  other  occasions  no  doubt  welcome  enough 
— be  as  much  out  of  place  in  a  ballroom  as  a  man 
would  be  in  a  boat  race  who  could  not  handle  an 
oar."  But  she  was,  so  she  added,  going  to  make  an 
attempt  at  reviving  a  kind  of  entertainment  to  which 
no  such  difficulties  would  attach  themselves.  Dur- 
ing the  months  of  the  coming  winter  she  proposed 
to  send  out  cards  to  all  her  more  intimate  acquaint- 
ances, announcing  that  she  would  always  be  at  home 
after  dinner  on  a  certain  day  each  week,  and  begging 
them  to  give  her  their  company  whenever,  and  as 
often  as,  they  pleased.  A  certain  number  of  people — 
all  of  them  agreeable  and  distinguished — responded 

118 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

to  this  appeal;  but  their  number  rarely  exceeded 
fifteen  or  twenty,  and  Lady  Marian  was  at  length 
bound  to  admit  that  the  competitive  attractions 
developed  by  the  enlargement  of  social  life  were 
such  as  to  render  a  revival  of  the  salon  impossible, 
even  among  acquaintances  so  carefully  chosen  as 
her  own. 

I  may,  however,  advert  to  another  lady  who  in  a 
certain  sense  succeeded  where  Lady  Marian  failed; 
but  she  succeeded  by  basing  her  salon  on  a  noticeably 
different  principle — namely,  that  of  inclusion,  where- 
as that  of  Lady  Marian  was  selection.  The  passport 
to  her  drawing-rooms  was  fame — even  fame  of  the 
most  momentary  kinds — and  as  fame  is  the  meed  of 
very  various  activities,  not  all  her  own  charm  was 
sufficient  on  some  occasions  to  prevent  her  company 
from  being  a  clash  of  illustrious  rivals  rather  than  a 
reunion  of  friends. 

Of  a  clash  of  this  kind  I  was  once  myself  a  witness, 
though  nobody  at  the  moment  divined  that  there 
was  a  clash  at  all.  The  scene  was  not  in  London, 
but  at  the  lady's  house  in  the  country,  where  a  few 
guests  were  staying  with  her  for  the  inside  of  a  week. 
Two  of  these  guests  were  poets ;  we  may  call  them  Sir 
E.  and  Sir  L.  The  visit  coincided  with  the  time  of 
Tennyson's  last  illness,  the  reports  of  which  became 
daily  more  alarming.  The  two  poets  evinced  much 
becoming  anxiety,  though  this  did  not  interfere  with 
the  zeal  with  which  one  day  at  luncheon  they  con- 
sumed a  memorable  plum  tart.  Next  morning 

119 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

neither  of  them  appeared  at  breakfast;  and  when 
both  of  them  remained  in  their  bedrooms  for  the 
larger  part  of  the  day  I  came  to  the  prosaic  con- 
clusion that  the  plum  tart  had  been  too  much  for 
them.  Next  morning  came  the  news  of  Tennyson's 
death.  The  two  bards  remained  in  their  cells  till 
noon,  after  which  they  both  reappeared  like  men 
who  had  got  rid  of  a  burden.  The  true  secret  of 
their  retirement  revealed  itself  the  morning  after, 
when  each  of  two  great  newspapers,  with  which 
they  were  severally  connected,  was  found  to  contain 
long  columns  of  elegy  on  the  irreparable  loss  which 
the  country  had  just  suffered — compositions  im- 
plying a  suggestion  on  the  part  of  each  of  the 
elegists  that  a  poet  existed  who  was  not  unfit  to 
repair  it.  That  same  day  after  luncheon  the  two 
competitors  departed.  Our  hostess  and  the  other 
guests  saw  them  off  at  the  station,  and  as  the  train 
went  on,  the  elegists  were  seen  waving  independent 
adieux,  one  from  a  first,  the  other  from  a  third- 
class  carriage.  The  successor  to  the  late  Laureate 
was  Mr.  Alfred  Austin. 

I  knew  Alfred  Austin  well;  and  a  few  words  with 
regard  to  him  may  not  be  inappropriate  here. 
Though  his  poetry  has  not  commanded  any  very- 
wide  attention,  he  had  more  of  true  poetry  in  him 
than  many  people  imagine.  He  had  all  the  quali- 
fications of  a  really  great  poet  except  a  sustained 
faculty  for  writing  really  good  poetry.  He  had  a 
sound  philosophic  conception  of  what  the  scope  and 

I2Q 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

functions  of  great  poetry  are;  and  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  select  from  his  works  isolated  passages  of 
high  and  complete  beauty.  But,  if  judged  by  his 
poetry  as  a  whole,  he  seems  to  have  been  so  indolent 
or  so  deficient  in  the  faculty  of  self-criticism  that 
for  the  most  part  he  suffered  himself  to  be  content 
with  language  which  resembled  an  untuned  piano, 
his  performances  on  which  were  often  calculated  to 
affront  the  attention  of  his  audience  rather  than  to 
arrest  and  capture  it.  He  once  or  twice  asked  me 
to  make  his  works  the  subject  of  a  critical  and  com- 
prehensive essay.  With  some  diffidence  I  consented, 
and  accomplished  this  delicate  task  by  picking  out 
a  number  of  his  best  and  most  carefully  finished 
passages,  which  showed  what  he  could  do  if  he 
tried,  and  how  far  by  pure  carelessness  he  elsewhere 
fell  short  of  the  standard  which  he  himself  had  set. 
For  example,  from  his  "Human  Tragedy"  I  quoted 
the  following  lines,  one  of  which  refers  to  Rome  as 
a  place  where  "Papal  statues  arrogantly  wave"; 
while  in  another,  describing  a  headlong  stream,  he 
says  with  the  utmost  complacency  that: 

The  cascade 
Bounded  adown  the  cataract. 

I  pointed  out  that  no  conceivable  feat  was  so 
absolutely  impossible  for  a  statue  as  that  of  "waving," 
and  that,  a  cataract  and  a  cascade  being  practically 
the  same  thing,  it  was  impossible  that  the  former 
could  manage  to  bound  down  the  latter.  My  prac- 

121 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tical  moral,  as  addressed  to  the  Laureate,  was, 
"Be  just  to  yourself,  and  the  public  will  be  just  to 
you,"  and  the  compliment  implied  in  one  part  of 
this  criticism  did  much  to  mitigate  the  unwelcome 
tenor  of  the  other. 

Many  interesting  people  I  used  to  meet  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  Froude  the  historian.  Among  these 
were  two  relatives  of  Mr.  Froude's  second  wife — 
namely,  Henry  Cowper,  one  of  the  most  charming 
conversationalists  of  his  time,  Lady  Florence  Her- 
bert, and,  through  her,  her  well-known  husband, 
Auberon.  Auberon  Herbert  was  a  most  singular 
character.  He  represented  a  movement  of  thought 
which  has  since  then  taken  other  directions,  and 
would  probably  now  be  associated  with  some  form 
or  other  of  socialism.  In  one  sense  he  was  certainly 
no  socialist.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  an  ardent 
champion  of  individual  freedom,  as  opposed  to  the 
tyranny  of  the  state.  He  even  contended  that  all 
taxation  should  be  voluntary,  and  actually  started  a 
journal,  mainly  written  by  himself,  in  support  of  this 
agreeable  doctrine.  He  was,  however,  yet  more  per- 
tinacious as  an  advocate  of  what  is  now  called  "the 
simple  life."  His  wife  shared,  though  she  slightly 
perhaps  tempered,  his  opinions ;  and  when  they  first 
set  up  house  together  they  insisted  that  all  their 
household — the  domestics  included — should  dine  at 
the  same  table.  After  a  week's  experience,  however, 
of  this  regime,  the  domestics  all  gave  warning,  and 
the  establishment  was  reconstructed  on  a  more  con- 

122 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ventional  footing.  This  counter-revolution  had  been 
accomplished  before  I  knew  him,  and  my  intimate 
acquaintance  with  him  began  at  a  great  shooting 
party  given  at  Highclere  Castle  by  Lord  Carnar- 
von, his  brother.  Neither  I  nor  he  were  shooters, 
and  while  battues  were  in  progress,  and  guns  were 
sounding  daily  at  no  very  great  distance,  he  walked 
me  about  the  park,  declaring  that  modern  castles 
which  stood  for  nothing  but  the  slaughter  of  half- 
tame  birds  were  examples  of  a  civilization  completely 
gone  astray.  In  order  that  I  might  see  what,  shorn 
of  its  earlier  eccentricities,  was  his  personal  ideal 
of  a  reasonably  ordered  life,  he  asked  me  to  stay 
with  him  for  a  week  at  his  own  home,  Ashley  Arne- 
wood,  in  Hampshire,  on  the  borders  of  New  Forest. 
In  due  time  I  went.  His  dwelling  among  the  wood- 
lands was  of  very  simple  construction.  It  was  a 
small  farmhouse  bisected  by  a  flagged  passage  giv- 
ing access  to  four  rooms.  On  the  right  as  one  entered 
was  a  kitchen,  on  the  left  was  an  apartment  which 
he  dignified  by  the  name  of  a  museum,  its  sole  con- 
tents being  fragments  of  ancient  British  pottery 
which  had  been  dug  up  in  the  neighborhood  and 
were  here  carefully  arranged  on  a  large  disused 
mangle.  Beyond,  and  opposite  to  one  another,  were 
a  dining  room  so  limited  in  size  that  one  end  of  the 
table  abutted  on  a  whitewashed  wall,  and  a  sitting 
room,  luxuriously  warm,  which  was  furnished  with 
several  deep  and  remarkably  comfortable  chairs. 
The  carpets  consisted  of  rough  coconut  matting, 

123 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

and  draughts  in  the  bedrooms  were  excluded  by 
rough  red  blankets,  which  did  duty  as  curtains.  The 
evening  repast  was  almost  obtrusively  a  tea  rather 
than  a  dinner,  though,  in  deference  to  my  own  pre- 
sumably unconverted  appetite,  I,  and  I  alone,  was 
provided  with  some  kind  of  meat.  I  could  not 
help  feeling  at  times  that  for  my  host  and  hostess 
alike  this  practice  of  "the  simple  life"  represented 
a  sacrifice  to  their  principles  rather  than  a  com- 
plete enjoyment  of  them,  for  on  several  occasions 
before  bedtime  they  both  confessed  to  a  sensation 
of  acute  hunger,  and  made  an  expedition  to  some 
mysterious  region  from  which  they  returned  with 
substantial  parallelograms  of  bread. 

Through  the  Antony  Froudes  I  also  made  ac- 
quaintance with  Lecky,  whose  nervous  shyness  in 
conversation  was  in  curious  contrast  to  his  weighty 
style  as  a  writer,  and  also  with  Dean  Stanley  and 
Whyte  Melville  the  novelist.  Between  the  two  latter 
there  might  seem  to  be  little  connection,  but  I  was 
asked  to  meet  them  at  a  little  dinner  of  four,  Whyte 
Melville  being  specially  anxious  to  ask  the  Dean's 
advice.  This  was  not,  however,  advice  of  any 
spiritual  kind.  Whyte  Melville  was  thoroughly  at 
home  in  the  social  world  and  the  hunting  field,  and 
had  made  himself  a  great  name  as  an  accurate 
describer  of  both,  but  he  was  now  ambitious  of 
achieving  renown  in  a  new  territory.  He  was  plan- 
ning a  novel,  Sarchedon,  a  story  of  the  ancient  East, 

and  was  anxious  to  learn  from  the  Dean  what  hi§- 

124 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

torical  authorities  would  best  guide  the  Homer  of 
Melton  and  Market  Harborough  in  reconstructing 
the  world  of  Bel  and  Baylon. 

In  speaking  of  novels  I  am  led  on  to  mention  an 
authoress  whose  fame  was  concurrent  with  Whyte 
Melville's,  and  whose  visions  of  modern  society  were 
not  altogether  unlike  his  own  visions  of  Babylonia. 
This  authoress  was  "Ouida."  Ouida  lived  largely  in 
a  world  of  her  own  creation,  peopled  with  foreign 
princesses,  mysterious  dukes — masters  of  untold 
millions,  and  of  fabulous  English  guardsmen  whose 
bedrooms  in  Knightsbridge  Barracks  were  inlaid 
with  silver  and  tortoise  shell.  And  yet  such  was  her 
genius  that  she  invested  this  phantom  world  with  a 
certain  semblance  of  life,  and  very  often  with  a 
certain  poetry  also.  In  some  respects  she  was  even 
more  striking  than  her  books.  In  her  dress  and  in 
her  manner  of  life  she  was  an  attempted  exaggeration 
of  her  own  female  characters.  For  many  years  she 
occupied  a  large  villa  near  Florence.  During  that 
time  she  visited  London  once.  There  it  was  that  I 
met  her.  She  depicted  herself  to  herself  as  a  person- 
age of  European  influence,  and  imagined  herself 
charged  with  a  mission  to  secure  the  appointment  of 
Lord  Lytton  as  British  Ambassador  in  Paris.  With 
this  purpose  in  view  she  called  one  day  on  Lady 
Salisbury,  who,  never  having  seen  her  before,  was 
much  amazed  by  her  entrance,  and  was  still  more 
amazed  when  Ouida,  in  confidential  tones,  said,  "I 
Jiave  come  to  tell  you  that  the  one  man  for  Paris  is. 

125 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Robert."  Lady  Salisbury's  answer  was  not  very  en- 
couraging. It  consisted  of  the  question,  "And  pray, 
if  you  pleaae,  who  is  Robert?"  In  a  general  way, 
however,  she  received  considerable  attention,  and 
might  have  received  more  if  it  had  not  been  for  her 
reckless  ignorance  of  the  complexities  of  the  London 
world.  In  whatever  company  she  might  be  in,  her 
first  anxiety  was  to  ingratiate  herself  with  the  most 
important  members  of  it,  but  she  was  constantly 
making  mistakes  as  to  who  the  most  important 
members  were.  Thus,  as  one  of  her  entertainers 
— "Violet  Fane" — told  me,  Ouida  was  sitting  after 

dinner  between  Mrs. ,  the  mistress  of  one  of  the 

greatest  houses  in  London,  and  a  vulgar  little  Irish 
peeress  who  was  only  present  on  sufferance.  Ouida 
treated  the  former  with  the  coldest  and  most  con- 
descending inattention,  and  devoted  every  smile  in 
her  possession  to  an  intimate  worship  of  the  latter. 
When,  however,  she  was  in  companies  so  carefully 
chosen  that  everybody  present  was  worthy  of  her 
best  attention,  and  so  small  that  all  were  willing  to 
give  their  best  attention  to  her,  she  showed  herself,  so 
I  was  told,  a  most  agreeable  woman.  Thus  fore- 
warned as  to  her  ways,  I  found  that  such  was  the 
fact.  I  gave  for  her  benefit  a  little  luncheon  party 
at  the  Bachelors'  Club,  the  only  guests  whom  I  asked 
to  meet  her  being  Philip  Stanhope  and  Countess 
Tolstoy  (now  Lord  and  Lady  Weardale),  Lord  and 
Lady  Blythswood,  and  Julia,  Lady  Jersey.  Ouida 
arrived  trimmed  with  the  most  exuberant  furs, 

126 


\ 

MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which,  when  they  were  removed,  revealed  a  costume 
of  primrose  color — a  costume  so  artfully  cut  that, 
the  moment  she  sat  down,  all  eyes  were  dazzled  by 
the  sparkling  of  her  small  protruded  shoes.  In  a 
word,  she  quite  looked  the  part,  and,  perceiving  the 
impression  she  had  made,  was  willing  to  be  gracious 
to  everybody.  As  we  were  going  upstairs  to  the 
luncheon  room,  this  effect  was  completed.  Lady 
Jersey  laid  a  caressing  hand  on  her  shoulder  and 
said:  "You  must  go  first.  The  entertainment  is  in 
honor  of  you."  Ouida  was  here  at  her  best.  No 
one  could  have  been  more  agreeable  and  less  affected 
than  she. 

Her  latter  years  were  overclouded  by  poverty. 
This  was  due  to  her  almost  mad  extravagance — to 
her  constant  attempts,  in  short,  to  live  up  to  the 
standards  of  her  own  heroines.  Had  she  acted  like 
a  sensible  woman,  she  might  have  realized  a  very 
fair  fortune.  She  had  many  appreciative  friends, 
who  gave  her  considerable  sums  to  relieve  her  at 
various  times  from  the  pressure  of  financial  diffi- 
culties; but  they  realized  in  the  end  that  to  do  this 
was  like  pouring  water  into  a  sieve.  Somebody 
gave  her  £250  in  London  to  enable  her  to  pay  her 
hotel  bill;  but  before  a  week  was  over  she  had 
lavished  more  than  a  hundred  in  turning  her  sitting 
room  at  the  Langham  Hotel  into  a  glade  of  the  most 
expensive  flowers.  She  died,  in  what  was  little 
better  than  a  peasant's  cottage,  at  Lucca.  Among 

the  ladies  to  whom  she  had  been  introduced  in 

127 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

London  was  Winifred,  Lady  Howard  of  Glossop. 
A  year  or  so  later  Ouida  wrote  me  a  letter  from 
Florence,  saying,  "Your  name  has  been  just  recalled 
to  me  by  seeing  in  the  Morning  Post  that  you  were 
dining  the  other  night  with  Lady  Howard  of  Glossop, 
one  of  my  oldest  friends."  This  is  an  example  of 
the  way  in  which  her  imagination  enabled  her  to 
live  in  a  fabric  of  misplaced  facts,  for  the  person 
through  whom  she  became  acquainted  with  Lady 
Howard  was  none  other  than  myself.  The  next 
letter  I  had  from  her  was  to  say  that  she  was  dedi- 
cating one  of  her  later  books — a  volume  of  essays — 
to  me.  The  letter  did  not  reach  me  till  after  many 
delays,  and  I  often  regret  the  fact  that  before  I  was 
able,  or  remembered,  to  answer  it  she  was  dead. 

Another  authoress  well  known  to  me,  of  whom  I 
have  made  mention  already,  was  the  beautiful 
"Violet  Fane,"  who,  under  that  pseudonym,  pub- 
lished many  volumes  of  poetry.  Pier  actual  name 
was  Mrs.  Singleton.  She  afterward  became  Lady 
Currie.  I  first  knew  her  before  my  London  days 
began,  and  I  dedicated  The  New  Republic  to  her. 
She  was  the  center  of  a  group  of  intimates,  of  whom 
those  who  survive  must  connect  her  with  many  of 
their  happiest  hours.  No  one  could  have  combined 
in  a  way  more  winning  than  hers  the  discriminations 
of  fashionable  life  with  an  inborn  passion  for  poetry. 
She  was  perfect  in  features,  slight  as  a  sylph  in 
figure,  and  her  large  dark  eyes  alternately  gleamed 
with  laughter  and  were  grave  as  though  she  were 

128 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

listening  for  a  voice  from  some  vague  beyond. 
Many  of  her  phrases,  when  she  was  speaking  of  social 
matters,  were  like  rapiers  with  the  tip  of  which,  as 
though  by  accident,  she  would  just  touch  the  foibles 
of  her  nearest  and  dearest  friends,  the  result  being  a 
delicate  puncture  rather  than  the  infliction  of  a 
wound. 

She  first  became  known  as  a  poetess  by  a  small 
volume  of  lyrics  called  From  Dawn  to  Noon,  in  which, 
if,  as  some  say,  poetry  be  self -revelation,  her  success, 
according  to  certain  of  her  censors,  was  somewhat 
too  complete.  The  same  criticism  was  provoked  by 
her  second  volume,  Denzil  Place,  a  novel  in  blank 
verse  interwoven  with  songs.  Whatever  her  censors 
may  have  said  about  it,  this,  from  first  to  last,  was  a 
work  of  real  inspiration.  Few  who  have  read  it  will 
have  forgotten  the  song  beginning: 

You  gave  to  me  on  that  dear  night  of  parting 
So  much,  so  little;  and  yet  everything, 

or  will  have  failed  to  recognize  the  musical  ear  of 
one  who  has  given  us  the  liquid  melody  of  two  such 
lines  as  these: 

The  tremulous  convolvulus  whose  closing  blue  eye  misses 
The  faint  shadow  on  the  dial  that  foretells  the  evening  hour. 

At  all  events,  whatever  her  merits  as  a  poetess, 
she  was  something  like  a  living  poem  for  a  certain 
group  of  friends,  of  whom  I  happened  to  be  one. 
This  group  comprised  men  such  as  Wilfrid  Blunt, 

129 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Lord  Lytton,  Philip  Currie,  Hamilton  Aide,  Frederick 
Locker,  Clair  Vyner,  Sir  Baldwin  Leighton,  and 
others,  all  of  whom  had  in  them  a  natural  apprecia- 
tion of  poetry,  while  some  of  them  were  poets  them- 
selves. With  a  more  or  less  intimate,  though  loosely 
formed,  group  like  this  my  memory  associates  many 
small  gatherings,  which  generally  took  the  form  of 
dinners,  either  at  "Violet  Fane's"  own  house  in 
Grosvenor  Place,  or  at  Hurlingham,  or  at  the  "Star 
and  Garter,"  or  at  Vyner's  house  among  its  gardens 
and  woods  at  Combe,  where  we  would  linger,  forget- 
ful of  time,  and  feeling  no  inclination  to  join  any 
larger  company. 

But  of  all  the  worlds  which,  within  the  world,  were 
more  or  less  self-cohesive  and  separate,  that  in 
which  I  felt  myself  most  at  home  was  the  Catholic. 
At  any  entertainment  given  at  a  Catholic  house  the 
bulk  of  the  guests — perhaps  three-fourths  of  them — 
would  be  Catholics.  These  would  be  people  so 
closely  connected  with  one  another  by  blood  or  by 
lifelong  acquaintance  as  to  constitute  one  large 
family.  Well-born,  well-bred,  and  distinguished  by 
charming  and  singularly  simple  manners,  they  were 
content  to  be  what  they  were,  and  the  Darwinian 
competition  for  merely  fashionable  or  intellectual 
brilliance,  however  prevalent  elsewhere,  was,  with 
few  exceptions,  to  them  virtually  unknown.  Yet 
whenever  anything  in  the  way  of  formal  pomp  was 
necessary,  they  were  fully  equal  to  the  occasion. 
The  well-known  dinners  given  by  Mrs.  Washington 

130 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Hibbert,  at  which  four-and-twenty  guests  would  be 
seated  round  a  huge  circular  table,  would  fill  Hill 
Street  with  swaying  family  coaches,  on  whose 
hammercloths  crests  and  coronets  maintained  an 
eighteenth-century  magnitude  which  the  modern 
world  was  abandoning,  while  on  certain  ecclesiastical 
occasions  Catholic  society  could  exhibit  a  stateliness 
even  more  conspicuous. 

On  one  of  these  latter  occasions  I  was,  as  well  as  I 
can  remember,  the  only  non-Catholic  in  the  com- 
pany. This  was  a  great  luncheon  party  given  by 
the  then  Lord  Bute  in  honor  of  Cardinal  Manning. 
Lord  Bute,  who  was  in  many  ways  the  most  learned 
of  the  then  recent  converts  to  Catholicism,  was,  as  is 
well  known,  the  original  of  Lothair  in  Lord  Beacons- 
field's  famous  novel.  Lord  Beaconsfield's  portrait  of 
him  was  disfigured,  and  indeed  made  ridiculous,  by 
the  gilding,  or  rather  the  tinsel,  with  which  his 
essentially  alien  taste  bedizened  it;  but,  apart  from 
such  exaggerations,  there  were  elements  in  it  of 
unmistakable  likeness,  and  the  entertainment  to 
which  I  am  now  referring  was,  apart  from  its  peculiar 
sequel,  like  a  page  of  Lothair  translating  itself  into 
actual  life. 

The  Butes  were  at  that  time  living  at  Chiswick 
House,  which  they  rented  from  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire. The  house  is  a  good  example  of  that  grandiose 
classicality  which  we  associate  with  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  the  saloon  in  which  the  guests  were 
assembled  provided  them  with  an  appropriate  back- 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ground.  They  were  something  like  thirty  in  number, 
and  comprised  some  of  the  greatest  of  the  then  great 
Catholic  ladies.  Lord  Beaconsfield  himself  could 
not  have  chosen  them  better.  Indeed  his  Lady  St. 
Jerome  was  actually  there  in  person.  When  I 
entered  there  was  a  good  deal  of  talking,  and  yet  at 
the  same  time  there  was  something  like  a  hush.  I 
divined,  and  divined  correctly,  that  the  Cardinal 
had  not  yet  arrived.  The  minutes  went  slowly  on ; 
the  appointed  hour  was  past.  At  length  a  sound  was 
heard  which  seemed  to  emanate  from  an  anteroom, 
and  presently  a  figure  was  solemnly  gliding  forward 
— a  figure  slight,  emaciated,  and  habited  in  a  long 
black  cassock.  This  was  relieved  at  the  throat  by 
one  peeping  patch  of  purple,  and  above  the  throat 
was  a  face  the  delicate  sternness  of  which  was  like 
semitransparent  ivory.  The  company  parted,  mak- 
ing way  for  the  great  Churchman,  and  then  a  scene 
enacted  itself  which  cannot  be  better  described  than 
in  the  words  written  many  years  previously  by  the 
author  of  Lothair  himself.  "The  ladies  did  their 
best  to  signalize  what  the  Cardinal  was  and  what  he 
represented,  by  reverences  which  a  posture-master 
might  have  envied  and  certainly  could  not  have 
surpassed.  They  seemed  to  sink  into  the  earth,  and 
slowly  and  supernaturally  to  emerge." 

When  the  banquet  was  over,  and  the  guests  were 
taking  their  departure,  our  host  begged  me  to  re- 
main, so  that  he  and  I  and  the  Cardinal  might  have 
a  little  conversation  by  ourselves.  We  were  pres- 

132 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ently  secreted  in  a  small  room  or  closet,  and  our 
little  talk  must  have  lasted  till  close  upon  six  o'clock. 
I  half  thought  for  a  moment  that  this  might  be  a 
planned  arrangement  so  that  then  and  there  I  might 
be  received  into  the  Roman  fold.  Matters,  however, 
took  a  very  different  course.  Under  the  Cardinal's 
guidance  the  conversation  almost  immediately — 
how  and  why  I  cannot  remember — turned  to  the 
subject  of  Spiritualism,  and  he  soon  was  gravely 
informing  us  that,  of  all  the  signs  of  the  times,  none 
was  more  sinister  than  the  multiplication  of  Spirit- 
ualist stances,  which  were,  according  to  him,  neither 
more  nor  less  than  revivals  of  black  magic.  He  went 
on  to  assert,  as  a  fact  supported  by  ample  evidence, 
that  the  devil  at  such  meetings  assumed  a  corporeal 
form — sometimes  that  of  a  man,  sometimes  that  of  a 
beautiful  and  seductive  woman,  the  results  being 
frequent  births,  in  the  prosaic  world  around  us,  of 
terrible  hybrid  creatures  half  diabolic  in  nature, 
though  wholly  human  in  form.  On  this  delicate 
matter  he  descanted  in  such  unvarnished  language 
that  the  details  of  what  he  said  cannot  well  be  re- 
peated here.  Of  the  truth  of  his  assertions  he  obvi- 
ously entertained  no  doubt,  and  such  was  his  dry, 
almost  harsh  solemnity  in  making  them  that,  as  I 
listened,  I  could  hardly  believe  my  ears.  Our  host, 
though  a  model  of  strictly  Catholic  devoutness,  was, 
so  he  told  me  with  a  smile  when  the  Cardinal  had 
taken  his  departure,  affected  very  much  as  I  was. 
The  impression  left  on  both  of  us  was  that,  in  the 
10  133 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Cardinal's  character,  there  must  have  been  a  vein  of 
almost  astounding  credulity — a  credulity  which 
would  account  for  the  readiness  with  which,  as  a 
social  reformer,  he  adopted  on  many  occasions  the 
wildest  exaggerations  of  agitators. 

I  was  subsequently  invited  to  call  on  him  at  the 
Archbishop's  house  in  Westminster.  During  the  in- 
terview which  ensued  he  revealed  intellectual  quali- 
ties very  different  from  those  which  had  elicited  a 
furtive  smile  even  from  a  Catholic  such  as  his  host 
at  Chiswick.  We  spent  most  of  the  morning  in  dis- 
cussing the  ultimate  difficulties,  philosophical,  his- 
torical, and  scientific,  which  preclude  the  modern 
mind  from  an  assent  to  the  philosophy  of  Cathol- 
icism. He  displayed  on  this  occasion  a  broadness 
and  a  balance,  if  not  a  profundity  of  thought,  in 
which  many  theologians  who  call  themselves  liberals 
are  wanting.  He  spoke  even  of  militant  atheists, 
such  as  Huxley  and  Tyndall,  without  any  sarcastic 
anger  or  signs  of  moral  reprobation.  He  spoke  of 
their  opinions,  not  as  sins  which  demanded  chastise- 
ment, but  simply  as  intellectual  errors  which  must 
be  cured  by  intellectual  refutation  rather  than  by 
moral  anathemas,  and  the  personal  relations  subsist- 
ing between  him  and  them  were  relations — so  I  have 
always  understood — of  mutual  amity  and  respect. 

Of  another  prominent  Catholic,  Wilfrid  Ward,  the 
same  thing  may  be  said.  As  a  Catholic  apologist  he 
was  a  model  of  candor  and  suavity.  He  was,  more- 
over, a  most  agreeable  man  of  the  world,  among  his 


CARDINAL   MANNING 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

accomplishments  being  that  of  an  admirable  mimic. 
He  was,  however,  best  known  as  an  exponent  of 
Catholic  liberalism;  and,  since  I  am  here  concerned 
only  with  recollections  of  social  life,  to  dwell  on  him 
longer  would  carry  me  too  far  astray. 

Out  of  this  last  observation  there  naturally  arises 
another,  which  relates  to  anecdotes  or  short  sketches 
of  individuals  as  a  method  of  social  history.  For 
certain  reasons  the  scope  of  this  method  is  limited. 
In  the  first  place,  the  persons  whose  doings  or  sayings 
are  commemorated  must  be  persons  who,  by  their 
position  or  reputation,  are  more  or  less  self-explana- 
tory to  the  ear  of  the  general  reader.  They  will 
otherwise  for  the  general  reader  have  very  little  sig- 
nificance. They  must  also  for  the  most  part  be 
dead,  so  that  their  susceptibilities  may  not  be 
wounded  by  a  too  free  allusion  to  their  doings. 
Further,  the  anecdotes  told  of  them  must  not  be  to 
their  disadvantage  in  any  way  which  would  wound 
the  susceptibilities  of  the  living.  These  mortifiying 
restrictions  are,  for  all  those  who  respect  them,  a 
deathblow  to  the  most  entertaining,  perhaps  the 
most  instructive,  part  of  what  the  memoir-writer 
has  to  tell.  During  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  the 
late  Lord  Wemyss  amused  himself  by  writing  mem- 
oirs of  his  own  distinguished  activities,  and  on 
repeated  occasions,  when  I  stayed  with  him  for  a 
week  in  Scotland,  he  asked  me  to  run  my  eye  over  a 
number  of  chapters  with  a  view  to  seeing  if  any  pas- 
sages which  might  give  offense  had  been  left  in  them. 


-MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

A  certain  number  of  such  had  been  already  struck 
out  by  himself,  but  I  very  soon  found  that  a  consider- 
able number  remained.  "God  bless  my  soul!"  he 
exclaimed  when  I  pointed  them  out  to  him.  "You 
are  perfectly  right.  Let  me  have  a  blue  pencil  in- 
stantly." Lady  P — • — ,  a  witty  woman  of  the  widest 
European  experience,  attempted  a  similar  task. 
She,  too,  asked  me  to  look  at  what  she  had  written, 
deploring  the  fact  that  all  the  most  amusing  parts 
had  passed  through  the  fire  to  the  Moloch  of  an 
almost  excessive  caution.  Here  again  I  pointed  out 
to  the  writer  passages  which  had  escaped  the  sacri- 
fice, and  which  the  living  would  certainly,  even  if  not 
justifiably,  resent — which  they  would,  indeed,  resent 
in  exact  proportion  to  their  accuracy. 

An  example  of  the  results  which  may  be  achieved 
by  a  memoir-writer  who  neglects  this  caution  is  pro- 
vided by  Augustus  Hare.  Hare  was  a  man  possessed 
of  many  accomplishments.  Like  Hamilton  Aide,  he 
was  a  very  remarkable  artist.  He  was  also  a  great 
teller  of  stories,  and  a  master  in  the  craft  of  improving 
whatever  truth  there  might  be  in  them.  By  birth 
and  otherwise  he  was  well  and  widely  connected,  and 
was  a  familiar  figure  in  many  of  the  best-known 
houses  in  England.  He  was  an  indefatigable  writer 
of  memoirs,  and  of  all  such  writers  he  was  incom- 
parably the  most  intrepid.  The  possibility  of 
offending  others,  even  though  they  might  be  his 
hosts  and  hostesses,  had  no  terrors  for  him.  I  was 
once  staying  at  a  country  house  in  Sussex  when  a 

136 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

new  book  by  him  appeared,  and  had  just  been  sent 
down  from  Mudie's.  I  had  twice  seen  its  back  on  a 
table,  and  meant  to  have  looked  at  it  in  my  bed- 
room before  dressing  for  dinner;  but  whenever  I 
tried  to  secure  it  for  my  own  perusal  it  had  disap- 
peared. I  heard  someone  casually  say,  "Every- 
body in  the  house  is  reading  it."  I  could  not  but 
wonder  why.  I  managed  to  secure  it  at  last,  and  set 
myself  to  find  out  the  reason.  It  did  not  take  long 
to  find.  Hare,  a  year  before,  had  been  staying  in 
that  very  house — a  house  famous  for  the  material 
perfection  of  its  equipments.  "The  servants  here," 
so  Hare  wrote  and  printed,  "are  notoriously  more 
pampered  than  those  in  any  other  house  in  England, 
and  their  insolence  and  arrogance  is  proportionate 
to  the  luxury  in  which  they  live."  On  another  oc- 
casion he  recorded  a  visit  to  Castle ,  the  family 

name  of  the  owners  being  C .     He  summed  up 

his  gratitude  to  his  entertainers  in  the  following  pithy 

sentence,    "Except  dear  Lady ,  I  never  could 

stand  the  C s."    Another  of  his  entries  was  as 

follows.  Having  migrated  from  the  Stanhopes'  at 
Chevening  to  a  neighboring  old  house  in  Kent,  he 
wrote,  "What  a  comfort  it  is,  after  staying  with 
people  who  are  too  clever,  to  find  oneself  with  people 
who  are  all  refreshingly  stupid!"  If  it  were  not  for 
the  danger  of  lapsing  into  indiscretions  like  these — 
indiscretions  of  which  Hare  seemed  altogether  un- 
conscious— interesting  anecdotes  might  be  here  in- 
definitely multiplied. 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Even  so,  however,  such  anecdotes,  no  matter  who 
recorded  them,  would  be  simply  so  many  jottings 
which  owed  their  continuity  to  the  fact  that,  like 
the  stones  of  a  necklace,  they  happened  to  be  strung 
on  the  thread  of  a  single  writer's  experiences,  and 
in  no  two  cases  would  this  thread  be  altogether  the 
same.  My  own  experiences  of  the  social  life  of 
London,  as  I  knew  it  in  my  earlier  days,  will  perhaps 
best  be  described  in  more  general  terms.  In  such 
terms,  then,  let  me  speak  of  it  as,  foreshortened  by 
time,  it  now  presents  itself  to  my  memory. 

For  me,  in  my  earlier  years,  the  routine  of  a  Lon- 
don day  was  practically  much  as  follows.  A  morning 
of  note-writing — of  accepting  or  refusing  invitations 
— was  succeeded  by  a  stroll  with  some  companion 
among  the  company — the  gay  and  animated  com- 
pany— which  before  the  hour  of  luncheon  at  that 
time  thronged  the  park.  Then,  more  often  than  not, 
came  a  luncheon  at  two  o'clock,  to  which  many  of 
the  guests  had  been  bidden  a  moment  ago  as  the 
result  of  some  chance  meeting.  A  garden  party, 
such  as  those  which  took  place  at  Sion  House  or  at 
Osterly,  would  occupy  now  and  again  the  rest  of  an 
afternoon;  but  the  principal  business  of  every 
twenty-four  hours  began  with  a  long  dinner  at  a 
quarter  past  eight,  or  sometimes  a  quarter  to  nine. 
For  any  young  man  who  took  part  in  the  social 
movement,  dinner  would  be  followed  by  two  or 
by  more  "At  Homes."  Then,  when  midnight  was 
approaching,  began  the  important  balls,  of  which 

138 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

any  such  young  man  would  show  himself  at  an  equal 
number,  and  dance,  eat  quails,  or  sit  with  a  suitable 
companion  under  palm  trees,  as  the  case  might  be; 
while  vigilant  chaperons,  oppressed  by  the  weight 
of  their  tiaras,  would  ask  one  another,  "Who  is  the 
young  man  who  is  dancing  with  my  daughter?" 
Finally,  if  the  night  were  fair,  young  men,  and  some- 
times ladies,  if  their  houses  were  close  at  hand, 
would  stroll  homeward  through  the  otherwise  de- 
serted streets,  while  the  East,  gray  already,  was 
being  slowly  tinged  with  saffron. 

If  the  life  of  those  who  play  a  part  in  a  London 
season  is  to  be  judged  by  what  they  do  with  them- 
selves during  a  London  season  itself,  it  might  be 
reasonably  asked  (as  it  is  asked  by  morose  social 
critics)  how  any  sensible  people  can  find  such  a  life 
tolerable.  To  this  question  there  are  several  an- 
swers. One  is  that  no  society  of  a  polished  and  bril- 
liant kind  is  possible  unless  special  talents  and 
graces,  wide  experience,  knowledge,  and  the  power 
that  depends  on  knowledge,  enter  into  its  composi- 
tion and  support  it  in  a  peculiar  manner  which  does 
not  prevail  elsewhere.  This  fact,  however,  will  be 
but  partly  intelligible  unless  we  remember  that  it 
is  based  on,  and  implies,  another — namely,  that  the 
society  which  is  identified  with  the  life  of  a  London 
season  represents  for  those  who  figure  in  it,  not  life 
as  a  whole,  but  merely  one  phase  of  a  life  of  which  the 
larger  part  is  of  very  different  kinds,  and  which 
elsewhere  exhibits  very  different  aspects. 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

This  observation  specially  applies  to  the  days 
when  London  society  was  in  the  main  an  annual 
assemblage  of  old-established  landed  families,  whose 
principal  homes  were  in  the  country,  and  whose 
consequence  was  derived  from  their  rural,  not  from 
their  urban,  associations.  Their  houses  in  the  coun- 
try were  constantly  filled  with  visitors.  Society, 
in  a  certain  sense  of  the  word,  surrounded  them 
even  there.  But  it  was  a  society  differing  in  its 
habits,  and  even  in  its  constitution,  from  that 
which  formed  itself  in  London,  and  of  the  total 
lives  of  most  of  the  persons  composing  it,  London 
life  represented  not  more  than  a  quarter.  For  me, 
my  own  annual  life  as  a  Londoner  rarely  exceeded 
three  months  out  of  twelve.  Except  for  these  three 
months,  my  habits,  as  they  formed  themselves  after 
my  father's  death,  were  for  a  long  time  these:  Of 
the  nine  other  months  I  spent  about  two  in  Devon- 
shire, where  by  this  time,  through  inheritance,  a  new 
home  was  open  to  me — Lauriston  Hall,  overlooking 
Torbay,  whose  waters  were  visible  from  the  windows 
through  a  screen  of  balustrades  and  rhododendrons. 
I  generally  wintered  abroad — for  the  most  part  on 
the  Riviera — and  the  rest  of  my  time  was  occupied 
in  country  visits  at  home,  from  the  South  of  England 
and  Ireland  to  the  borders  of  Sutherland  and 
Caithness. 

During  the  months  of  the  London  season  my  im- 
mediate preoccupations,  superficially  at  all  events, 
Were,  no  doubt,  those  of  an  idler;  but  even  during 

140 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

such  periods,  as  I  presently  shall  have  occasion  to 
mention,  serious  thoughts  beset  me  almost  without 
cessation.  Even  experiences  of  human  nature  which 
were  flashed  on  me  at  balls  and  dinners,  through 
that  species  of  mental  polygamy  of  which  society 
essentially  consists,  helped  me  to  mature  projects 
which  I  executed  under  conditions  of  greater  calm 
elsewhere.  In  the  following  chapter  I  shall  speak 
of  country  houses,  describing  the  atmosphere  and 
aspect  of  some  of  those  which  were  best  known  to 
me,  and  which  I  found  most  favorable  to  the  prose- 
cution of  such  serious  work  as  I  have  accomplished 
in  the  way  of  philosophy,  of  fiction,  and  of  direct 
or  of  indirect  politics. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SOCIETY   IN    COUNTRY   HOUSES 

A  Few  Country  Houses  of  Various  Types — Castles  and  Manor 
Houses  from  Cornwall  to  Sutherland 

f*TT^HE  pleasantest  form  of  society  in  country 
houses — I  speak  here  for  myself — is  not  to  be 

•A.  found  on  occasions  such  as  that  of  a  great 
shooting  party  or  a  party  for  a  country  ball,  but 
rather  in  gatherings  of  a  smaller  and  more  intimate 
kind. 

As  an  illustration  of  my  own  views  in  this  respect, 
I  may  mention  an  incident  which  may  appeal,  per- 
haps, to  the  sympathies  of  others  whose  tastes  or 
distastes  are  like  my  own.  I  was  asked  to  stay  in 
Shropshire  with  some  friends  whom  I  knew  so  in- 
timately that  they  did  not  care  how  they  treated 
me;  and  on  this  occasion  they  had  treated  me  very 
ill.  As  I  was  approaching  my  destination  by  way 
of  a  little  local  line,  I  was  surprised  at  seeing  on  the 
platform  of  one  station  after  another  an  extraor- 
dinary amount  of  luggage,  together  with  a  number 
of  footmen  and  unmistakable  ladies'  maids.  What 
could  be  the  meaning  of  this?  At  last  the  question 
occurred  to  me :  Can  it  be  possible  that  some  county 
ball  is  impending,  and  that  my  dear  friends  mean  to 
take  me  to  it?  My  surmise  was  but  too  correct. 

142 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

"Why,"  I  asked  my  hostess,  "didn't  you  tell  me? 
I  would  have  come  when  this  ball  was  over."  "Yes," 
she  said,  "I  know  that.  That's  why  I  did  not  tell 
you.  We  sha'n't  let  you  off,  don't  think  it."  I 
answered,  in  tones  of  resignation:  "Well,  what  must 
be  must  be."  There  the  matter  dropped,  till  the 
night  of  the  ball  arrived,  and  the  ladies  went  upstairs 
to  make  themselves  ready  for  the  festival.  I  went 
upstairs  likewise,  but  my  proceedings  differed  from 
theirs.  I  took  off  my  coat,  lay  down  on  my  bed, 
and  covered  myself  completely  in  the  folds  of  a  great 
fur  rug.  Presently  came  a  voice  at  the  door — that 
of  my  hostess — saying,  in  tones  of  command:  "Are 
you  ready?  Be  quick!  We  must  be  going."  "I 
can't  come,"  I  answered.  "I'm  in  bed."  My  hostess 
saw  that  I  had  got  the  better  of  her.  I  heard  her 
laugh  the  laugh  of  confessed  defeat.  As  soon  as 
the  sound  of  her  wheels  told  me  she  was  off  the 
premises,  I  put  on  my  coat,  went  down  to  the  library, 
read  a  novel  by  the  fire,  and  when  she  and  her 
friends  returned  I  had  a  most  charming  supper  with 
them  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

The  ideal  society  in  country  houses  is,  in  my  opin- 
ion, of  a  kind  more  or  less  fortuitous.  It  consists 
mainly  of  persons  connected  with  their  entertainers 
by  family  ties  or  long  and  intimate  friendship.  Most 
of  the  houses  to  which  I  am  now  alluding — some  of 
them  great,  others  relatively  small,  but  most  of  them 
built  by  the  forefathers  of  their  present  owners — 
have  been  houses  which  represented  for  me  that 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

old  order  of  things  with  which  I  was  familiar  in  my 
own  earliest  childhood.  Family  traditions  and  as- 
sociations— elements  rooted  in  the  soil  of  a  national 
and  immemorial  past — such  were  the  factors  by 
which  the  life  of  these  houses  was  dominated.  Their 
influence  breathed  from  old  portraits — many  of 
them  very  bad — on  the  walls;  from  old  carpets  and 
furniture;  from  rows  of  forgotten  books;  from 
paths  by  secluded  rivers ;  from  labyrinths  of  bracken 
and  from  the  movements  of  noiseless  deer.  In  such 
houses,  except  on  rare  occasions,  the  company  be- 
longed essentially  to  the  same  world  as  their  enter- 
tainers. They  were  a  nation  within  a  nation,  from 
which  the  newly  arrived  magnates  of  mere  London 
fashion  would  be  absent,  while  persons  obscure  in 
London  would  be  here  in  their  natural  element. 
Everybody  here  not  only  knew  everybody  else,  but 
had  known  them,  or  had  at  least  known  all  about 
them,  always.  In  this  respect  society  in  such  country 
houses  generally  bore,  and  still  tends  to  bear,  a  strong 
resemblance  to  Catholic  society  in  London. 

But  quite  apart  from  these  characteristics  which 
depend  on  similar  antecedents,  society  in  a  country 
house  possesses  advantages  which  in  a  London  life 
are,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  impossible.  At  a 
fashionable  evening  party  in  London  a  lady,  when 
she  talks  to  a  man,  gives  him  generally  the  impres- 
sion, as  soon  as  she  has  exchanged  a  word  with 
him,  that  the  one  wish  of  her  life  is  to  be  talking  to 
somebody  else.  London  conversations,  even  at  din- 

144 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ners,  when  neither  party  for  an  hour  or  so  is  able  to 
desert  the  other,  are  in  any  case  cut  short,  like 
chapters  of  a  novel  which  are  torn  away  from  their 
context.  Country-house  conversations  are  like  novels 
which,  if  laid  down  at  one  moment,  can  be  taken  up 
again  the  next.  The  atmosphere  of  London  is  one 
of  constant  excitement.  The  atmosphere  of  a  country 
house  is  one  of  interest  pervaded  by  repose.  Each 
night  there  is  a  dinner  party,  but  there  is  no  going 
out  to  dinner,  and  there  is  no  separation  afterward. 
What  is  there  comparable  in  London  to  the  sense 
of  secluded  parks,  or  of  Scotch  or  of  Irish  hillsides, 
where  society  is  not  absent,  but  is  present  only  as 
concentrated  in  the  persons  of  a  few  individuals, 
who  at  happy  moments  may  be  temporarily  reduced 
to  two,  and  where  all  become  new  beings  in  new  and 
undisturbed  surroundings  ? 

Further,  let  me  observe  this — I  have  here  an  eye 
on  my  own  case  in  particular — that,  for  an  unmar- 
ried man  with  a  literary  purpose  in  life,  the  enjoy- 
ment of  such  society  is  heightened  by  the  fact — the 
very  important  fact — that  at  any  moment  he  may 
shut  himself  up  in  his  bedroom  as  soon  as  the  house- 
maids have  done  with  it,  and  devote  himself  to  his 
own  avocations  like  a  hermit  in  an  African  desert. 
Of  such  serious  work  as  I  have  myself  accomplished, 
I  have  accomplished  a  large  part  in  hermitages  of 
this  description ;  and  the  fact  that  society  was  never 
very  far  away  I  have  usually  felt  as  a  stimulus,  and 
very  rarely  as  a  disturbance. 

H5 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Friends  have  often  suggested  to  me  that  even 
persons  whose  own  acquaintance  with  country  houses 
is  extensive  might  be  interested  by  a  description 
of  some  that  I  have  known  myself.  I  have  indeed 
known  as  many  of  such  houses  as  most  people; 
but  no  one  person  can  know  more  than  a  limited 
number  of  them;  and  even  of  this  limited  number 
I,  in  a  volume  like  the  present,  can  mention  only  a 
few.  I  will  take  them  in  the  order  in  which  for 
geographical  or  architectural  reasons  they  most 
readily  recur  to  my  own  memory.  I  may  begin  with 
two  which  deserve  to  be  coupled  together  on  account 
of  the  positions  which  they  occupy — namely,  the 
extreme  northeast  of  Great  Britain  in  one  case,  and 
the  extreme  southwest  in  the  other.  I  allude  to 
Dunrobin  Castle  in  Sutherland,  and  St.  Michael's 
Mount  in  Cornwall. 

The  whole  population  of  the  great  county  of 
Sutherland  is  hardly  so  much  as  two-thirds  of  the 
population  of  Wimbledon,  and,  except  for  some  mi- 
nute portions,  was,  prior  to  certain  recent  sales,  a 
single  gigantic  property.  Dunrobin  Castle,  with  a 
million  silent  acres  of  mountain  and  moor  behind 
it,  looks  down  from  a  cliff  over  the  wastes  of  the 
North  Sea,  but  is  on  the  landward  side  sheltered 
by  fine  timber.  At  the  foot  of  the  cliff  are  the 
flower  beds  of  an  old-world  garden.  The  nucleus, 
of  the  house  is  ancient,  but  has  now  been  incrusted 
by  great  modern  additions,  the  Victorian  regime 
expressing  itself  in  windows  of  plate  glass.  But 

146 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

through  the  plate  glass  on. one  side  is  visible  a  pre- 
historic habitation  of  the  Picts  and  a  cavern  in  which 
gypsy  mothers  are  even  now  brought  secretly  to 
give  birth  to  their  offspring.  On  the  other  side  are 
visible  the  slopes  of  a  barren  hill,  inhabited  till  lately 
by  a  witch,  who  gathered  herbs  by  night  under  the 
influence  of  certain  planets,  and  of  whose  powers 
even  the  doctor  at  Golspie  went  in  half-acknowledged 
terror.  At  dinner  two  pipers  played  on  a  landing 
outside  the  dining  room.  So  remote  is  this  great 
house  from  any  center  of  modern  industry  that  the 
carts,  dogcarts,  and  wagonettes  used  by  the  estate 
and  the  family  were  built  and  repaired  by  a  staff 
of  men  on  the  premises.  My  first  visit  to  Dunrobin 
was  in  the  days  of  the  Duchess  Annie.  The  duke 
was  away  on  his  yacht,  but  during  my  visit  he  re- 
turned, and  the  duchess  and  I  went  to  meet  him 
at  the  station — a  private  station  in  the  grounds. 
Those  were  the  early  days  of  agrarian  agitation  in 
the  Highlands — an  agitation  which  was  vehemently 
applauded  by  the  Radical  press  of  London.  One 
Radical  correspondent  reported  in  tones  of  triumph 
that  the  duke  had  been  openly  cursed  by  his  tenants 
on  his  own  private  platform.  The  nonsensical  nature 
of  such  statements  is  sufficiently  illustrated  by  what 
happened  on  the  occasion  here  in  question.  A  num- 
ber of  tenants  were  gathered  together  on  the  plat- 
form for  the  purpose  of  receiving  the  duke,  not  with 
curses,  but  with  welcome;  and  as  soon  as  he  had 
descended  from  the  train  an  old  woman  rushed  from 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  throng  and  very  nearly  embraced  him.  "You 
dear  old  woman,"  he  said,  laying  his  hand  on  her 
shoulder,  "you  dear  old  woman,  how  glad  I  am  to 
see  you  again!" 

St.  Michael's  Mount,  though  less  remote  than 
Dunrobin  from  the  modern  world  in  some  ways,  is 
more  visibly  separated  from  it  in  another,  being, 
except  at  times  of  low  tide,  an  island.  It  crowns 
and  incases  the  summit  of  a  veritable  island  rock. 
The  entrance  to  it  is  by  a  tower  the  bases  of  which 
seem  to  descend  from  above  and  meet  the  visitor 
halfway  as  he  toils  up  a  path  apparently  made  for 
rabbits.  Having  mounted  a  hundred  stairs,  the  ad- 
venturer is  in  a  comfortable  hall,  above  which  are 
the  dining  room,  once  a  monkish  refectory,  and  an 
ancient  church,  now  used  as  a  private  chapel.  One 
door  of  this  hall  gives  access  to  a  large,  drawing-room, 
one  of  whose  walls  and  whose  fireplace  have  been 
carved  out  of  the  living  rock.  Another  gives  access 
to  a  billiard  room,  below  which  the  Atlantic  breaks 
at  a  depth  of  two  hundred  feet,  and  whose  granite 
balconies  are  grazed  by  the  breasts  of  ascending 
sea  birds. 

Both  these  houses,  which  would  constantly  suggest 
to  me,  when  I  stayed  in  them,  the  celebrated  words  of 

Keats : 

Magic  casements  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas  in  faery  lands  forlorn, 

are,  it  is  needless  to  say,  exceptions  rather  than  types. 
Of  the  others  which  I  may  appropriately  mention,  a 

148 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

few  may  be  taken  as  belonging  to  an  exceptional 
class  also,  on  account  of  their  unusual  size;  and 
these  I  may  again  divide  into  genuine  and  ancient 
castles,  as  distinct  from  modern  imitations  on  the 
one  hand,  and  what  are  properly  palatial  villas  of 
the  classical  type  on  the  other;  the  remainder  being 
smaller,  though  often  of  great  magnitude,  and  com- 
monly known  by  such  names  as  "halls,"  "parks," 
or  "manors." 

Of  more  or  less  genuine  castles  I  have  known  a  con- 
siderable number,  many  of  them  much  smaller  than 
houses  less  ambitiously  named ;  but,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Alnwick,  the  interior  of  which  is  undis- 
guisedly  modern,  there  is  one  which,  in  point  of  mag- 
nitude and  continuity  of  occupation,  forms  a  class 
by  itself.  This  castle  is  Raby,  which  has  never  been 
uninhabited  since  the  days  of  Stephen,  when  the 
first  smoke  wreaths  rose  from  its  kitchen  chimney. 
The  house  is  a  huge  block,  rising  at  intervals  into 
towers,  with  a  small  court  in  the  middle  of  it,  across 
which  carriages  drive,  having  passed  through  a 
tunnel  of  arches,  and  deposit  their  occupants  in.  a 
hall,  from  which  stairs,  at  both  ends  of  it,  lead  to  the 
various  living  rooms,  among  these  being  an  upper 
hall  more  than  fifty  yards  in  length.  This  whole 
block  stands  in  a  walled  area,  entered  by  a  castel- 
lated gateway  and  encircled  by  a  moat,  a  portion  of 
which  still  holds  water,  and  in  which  the  towers 
reflect  themselves.  When  I  stayed  there  as  a  guest 
of  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  an  at- 
11  149 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

mosphere  of  the  past  not  only  pervaded  the  castle, 
but  seemed  to  extend  itself  for  some  miles  into  the 
neighborhood.  When  I  and  others  who  had  arrived 
by  the  same  train  issued  from  the  station  doors,  the 
carriages  awaiting  us  in  the  twilight  comprised  old 
yellow  chariots  with  postilions,  like  that  of  my  grand- 
father in  which  I  had  swung  myself  when  a  child. 
I  said  to  Augustus  Hare,  who  happened  to  be  one  of 
the  party,  "One  would  think  that  we  all  of  us  were 
going  to  Gretna  Green."  When  we  approached  the 
castle,  whose  towers  were  blots  in  the  November 
evening,  I  felt  we  were  approaching  a  castle  in  a 
child's  fairy  tale.  In  point  of  magnitude,  combined 
with  ancient  and  absolutely  continuous  occupation, 
there  is,  so  far  as  my  own  experience  goes,  no  private 
dwelling  in  the  kingdom  which  excels,  or  even  equals, 
Raby.  The  duchess  kept  a  great  album  in  which 
each  of  her  guests  was  asked  to  inscribe  some  record 
of  his  or  of  her  visit,  which  record  was  to  take  the 
form  of  answers  to  certain  printed  questions,  or 
of  a  sketch,  or  some  original  verses.  I  preferred 
to  take  refuge  in  the  last,  my  own  metrical  record 
being  this: 

Some  scoff  at  what  was,  and  some  shrink  from  what  may  be 
Or  is;  but  they  all  must  be  pleased  with  a  place 

Where  even  what  was  looks  enchanting  in  Raby, 
And  where  even  what  is  is  redeemed  by  Her  Grace. 

Apart  from  genuine  castles  of  feudal  type  and 
origin,  the  greatest  houses  I  have  known,  if  regarded 

150 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

as  architectural  structures,  are  Blenheim,  Trentham 
(the  Brentham  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  Lothair),  and 
Cliveden.  In  this  class  I  should,  perhaps,  include 
also  Sir  Robert  Walpole's  Houghton,  where  I  have 
stayed  as  the  guest  of  Cora,  Lady  Strafford,  who 
occupied  it  for  many  years  as  a  tenant,  and  with 
singular  taste  and  knowledge  so  arranged  the  interior 
that  every  chair,  sideboard,  and  table  then  in 
common  use  had  been  Sir  Robert  Walpole's  own.  I 
wrote  my  letters  one  morning  in  his  study,  at  his 
own  writing  table,  and  using  his  own  inkstand. 
The  walls  were  lined  with  books,  most  of  them 
presents  from  his  contemporaries,  and  some  of  them 
extremely  curious.  I  may  mention  one  in  particular. 
It  related  to  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  and  contained 
what  was  practically  a  list  of  the  largest  commercial 
fortunes  existing  then  in  England. 

Other  houses  which  in  point  of  magnitude  belong 
to  the  same  group  are  Stowe,  with  its  frontage  of 
more  than  a  thousand  feet,  Hamilton  Palace,  Went- 
worth  Wodehouse,  and  Eaton.  By  those  whose 
knowledge  is  greater  than  mine,  the  list,  in  any  case 
small,  might,  no  doubt,  be  extended.  I  speak  here 
only  of  those  at  which  I  have  myself  stayed.  But, 
in  any  case,  no  one,  however  wealthy,  would  think 
of  building  on  a  similar  scale  now.  Their  magnitude 
was  useful  only  in  days  other  than  ours,  when 
visitors  stayed  for  a  month  or  six  weeks  at  a  time, 
and  brought  with  them  their  own  carriages  and  the 
necessary  grooms  and  coachmen.  It  is  only  on  very 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

rare  occasions  that  such  houses  could  be  even  half 
filled  to-day;  and  they  dwarf,  rather  than  subserve, 
the  only  possible  life  that  a  reasonable  man  could 
live  in  them.  Blenheim  impresses  a  visitor  as 
though  it  were  built  for  giants.  Alfred  Montgomery, 
when  staying  for  the  first  time  at  Eaton,  could  not, 
on  coming  downstairs,  find  his  way  to  the  breakfast 
room  till  he  encountered  a  friend  who  guided  him. 
"Good  God!"  he  exclaimed  as  he  entered  the  desired 
apartment,  "I  don't  want  to  eat  my  breakfast  in 
a  cathedral."  Mere  magnitude,  indeed,  beyond  a 
certain  point  is  not  a  luxury,  but  an  oppression. 
The  greatest  private  dwelling  ever  erected  in  Eng- 
land is  said  to  have  been  Audley  End,  when  its 
original  builder  completed  it.  James  I  said  of  it, 
"It  is  a  house  fit  only  for  a  king";  and  before  it 
could  be  rendered  habitable  three-fourths  of  it  had 
to  be  pulled  down.  Such  was  the  verdict  of  experi- 
ence on  overbuilding  in  the  past;  and  though  many 
conditions  have  changed,  a  similar  practical  criticism 
is  occasionally  being  pronounced  to-day.  Trentham 
is  practically  gone.  Hamilton  Palace,  it  is  said,  will 
soon  exist  no  longer. 

When,  however,  we  turn  to  genuine  castles,  pseudo- 
castles,  or  houses  which,  large  though  many  of  them 
are,  are  small  as  compared  with  these,  my  memory 
provides  me  with  examples  of  them  which  are  scat- 
tered all  over  the  kingdom,  but  of  which,  since  they 
are  types  rather  than  grandiose  exceptions,  it  will  for 
the  moment  be  enough  to  describe  a  few,  others 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

being    reserved    for    mention    in    connection    with 
particular  circumstances. 

Of  castles  other  than  the  greatest,  were  I  asked  to 
name  the  most  romantic  which  has  been  known  to 
me  as  a  visitor,  and  the  most  agreeable  in  the  way  of 
an  ancestral  dwelling,  I  should,  I  think,  begin  with 
Powis,  as  it  stands  with  its  rose-red  walls,  an  exhala- 
tion of  the  Middle  Ages,  on  a  steep  declivity  among 
the  mountainous  woods  of  Wales — woods  full  of 
deer  and  bracken.  Much  of  its  painted  paneling 
had  never  been,  when  I  stayed  there,  touched  or 
renovated  since  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Worcester. 
In  a  bedroom  which  had  once  been  occupied  by 
Charles  I  there  was  hardly  a  piece  of  furniture  which 
was  not  coeval  with  himself.  The  dining  room,  as  I 
remember  it,  had  been  frescoed  by  a  Dutch  artist  in 
the  reign  of  William  and  Mary. 

In  respect  of  mere  romantic  situation,  the  English 
house  which  I  remember  as  coming  nearest  to  Powis 
is  Glenthorne,  the  seat  of  the  Hallidays,  which  not  so 
very  long  ago  was  thirty  miles  from  a  railway  on 
one  side,  and  seventeen  on  another.  It  fronts  the 
Bristol  Channel  on  the  confines  of  Devon  and 
Somerset.  I  have  described  it  accurately  in  my 
novel  The  Heart  of  Life.  In  its  general  aspect  it 
resembles  my  own  early  home,  Denbury,  but  in 
some  ways  it  is  quite  peculiar.  In  front  of  it  is  an 
Italian  garden,  below  which  are  breaking  waves,  and 
behind  it  precipitous  woods  rise  like  a  wall  to  an 
altitude  of  more  than  twelve  hundred  feet.  The 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

only  approach  to  the  house  is  by  a  carriage  drive 
three  miles  long,  which  descends  to  it  in  zigzags 
from  the  upper  world  of  Exmoor. 

Hardly  less  romantic  is  Ugbrooke,  the  seat  of  the 
Cliffords,  about  twelve  miles  from  Torquay,  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Dry  den,  who  was  a  frequent 
guest  there,  and  haunted  by  the  Catholicism  of  a 
long  series  of  generations.  The  chapel  is  approached 
through,  and  transmits  its  incense  to,  a  library  which 
hardly  contains  a  book  more  recent  than  the  days  of 
the  nonjurors,  and  I  have  often  spent  long  mornings 
there  examining  the  files  of  journals  belonging  to  the 
epoch  of  Queen  Anne,  of  the  first  two  Georges,  and  of 
Pope.  I  have  kindred  recollections  of  Lulworth 
Castle  in  Dorsetshire,  where  the  old  religious  regime 
so  casts  its  spell  over  everything  that  I  should  hardly 
have  been  surprised  if  a  keeper,  encountered  in  the 
twilight  park,  had  turned  out  to  be  carrying,  not  a 
gun,  but  a  crossbow. 

Of  other  houses  connected  with  Catholic  memories 
I  may  mention  two  in  Yorkshire — Everingham  Park 
and  Houghton,  then  the  respective  homes  of  the  late 
Lord  Herries  and  his  kinsman,  Mr.  Charles  Lang- 
dale.  Both  were  hereditary  and  absolutely  unques- 
tioning Catholics;  and,  strange  to  say,  a  large  part 
of  their  tenantry  were  hereditary  Catholics  also. 
Each  of  these  houses  has  a  great  chapel  attached  to 
it,  and  every  Sunday  processions  of  farmers'  dog- 
carts would  deposit  their  occupants  at  doors  the 
decorations  of  which  plainly  showed  that  for  these 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

stalwart  Englishmen  the  Protestant  Reformation 
was  no  more  than  a  dream. 

But  putting  the  question  of  Catholic  atmosphere 
aside,  and  reverting  once  more  to  castles,  I  may  begin 
with  a  mention  of  Chillingham,  sheltered  by  the 
shadowy  woods  and  surrounded  by  the  moors  of 
Northumberland. 

As  compared  with  Alnwick,  Chillingham  is  a  small 
structure.  Apart  from  some  offices  added  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  it  occupies  an  area  measuring 
a  hundred  and  twenty  feet  by  a  hundred.  The  outer 
walls  are  of  enprmous  thickness,  with  a  tower  at  each 
corner;  and  against  these  outer  walls  the  rooms 
which  constitute  the  dwelling,  much  less  massive  in 
their  masonry,  are  built  round  a  small  court.  They 
have  hardly  been  altered  since  the  days  of  Inigo 
Jones.  When  I  stayed  there  with  Sir  Andrew  Noble, 
who  for  many  years  was  Lord  Tankerville's  tenant, 
the  whole  of  the  furniture  seemed  to  have  grown  old 
with  the  house.  The  most  modern  contents  of  the 
bookshelves  were  the  novels  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  whose 
faded  backs  would  grow  young  again  in  the  flickering 
warmth  of  fires.  Beneath  the  external  windows 
were  the  box  borders  of  a  garden,  and  visible  on  dis- 
tant slopes  were  the  movements  of  wild  cattle. 

Another  castle  with  which  I  was  very  familiar  was 
Elvaston,  near  Derby,  where  year  after  year  I  stayed 
with  the  late  Lord  and  Lady  Harrington.  Originally 
a  red-brick  manor  house,  it  was  castellated  in  the 
days  of  Wyatt;  and  though  architects  of  to-day 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

would  smile  at  its  artificial  Gothic,  it  may  now  for 
this  very  reason  be  regarded  as  a  historical  monu- 
ment. It  is  a  monument  of  tastes  and  sentiments 
which  have  long  since  passed  away.  It  represents 
not  only  a  vanished  taste  in  architecture,  but  senti- 
ments also  which  are  now  even  more  remote.  The 
Earl  of  Harrington,  under  whom  the  Gothic  trans- 
figuration was  accomplished,  seems  to  have  regarded 
himself  as  a  species  of  knight-errant.  Round  the 
fluted  pillars  by  which  the  roof  of  the  hall  is  sup- 
ported— a  hall  which  he  christened  "the  Hall  of  the 
Fair  Star" — were  strapped  imitation  lances,  and  the 
windows  were  darkened  by  scrolls  which  all  bore  the 
same  motto,  "Loyal  to  Honor  and  to  Beauty." 
This  Lord  Harrington  had  married  a  very  beautiful 
wife,  for  whose  pleasure  he  surrounded  the  house 
with  a  labyrinth  of  clipped  yew  hedges,  the  trees 
having  been  brought  full  grown  from  every  part  of 
England.  Animated  by  a  romantic  jealousy,  he 
never  permitted  this  lady  to  stray  beyond  the  park 
gates,  and  a  little  pavilion  at  the  end  of  a  yew 
avenue  contains,  or  contained  till  lately,  a  curious 
something  which  is  a  vivid  revelation  of  his  mind. 
It  consists  of  an  image  in  plaster  of  Paris  of  his 
ladylove,  together  with  one  of  himself  kneeling  at 
her  feet  and  gazing  at  her,  his  hands  being  about  to 
commit  his  adoration  to  the  strings  of  a  guitar.  The 
Lord  Harrington  of  my  time,  whose  death  is  a  still 
recent  event,  was  associated  with  the  huntsman's 
horn  rather  than  with  the  strings  of  a  troubador,  and 

156 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

with  the  accouterments  of  the  polo-field  rather  than 
with  spears  and  lances.  Lord  Harrington,  though 
his  ruling  passion  was  sport,  was  a  man  of  wide 
information,  expert  as  a  mechanical  engineer,  and 
possessed  alike  in  disposition  and  manner  that  rare 
kind  of  geniality  which  almost  amounts  to  genius, 
and  made  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact — even 
the  Derbyshire  miners — his  friends. 

The  mention  of  Elvaston  carries  my  thoughts  to 
Cardiff.  Cardiff  Castle  till  late  in  the  nineteenth 
century  was  mainly,  though  not  wholly,  ruinous, 
and  some  decades  ago  it  was,  at  enormous  expense, 
reconstructed  by  the  late  Lord  Bute.  All  the  lore 
of  the  architectural  antiquarian  was  ransacked  in 
order  to  consummate  this  feat.  Indeed  the  wealth  of 
detail  accumulated  and  reproduced  by  him  will  be 
held  by  many  people  to  have  defeated  its  own  ends. 
Ornaments,  carvings,  colorings,  of  which  ancient 
castles  may  severally  offer  single  or  a  few  specimens, 
were  here  crowded  together  in  such  emphatic  pro- 
fusion as  to  fill  the  mind  of  the  spectator  with  a 
sense  of  something  novel  rather  than  of  anything 
antique.  In  a  certain  spectacular  sense  Cardiff 
Castle  is  large,  but  for  practical  purposes  it  is  very 
much  the  reverse.  I  stayed  there — and  this  was  my 
first  introduction  to  Wales — for  the  Eisteddfod,  of 
which  for  that  year  Lord  Bute  was  the  president. 
The  house  party  on  the  occasion  comprised  only 
eight  persons,  and  there  was,  so  I  gathered,  no  room 
for  more.  Lord  Bute  was  by  temperament  a  man  of 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

extreme  shyness,  who  naturally  shrank  from  obtrud- 
ing his  own  person  in  public,  but  on  this  occasion 
he  rose  to  a  full  sense  of  his  obligations.  He  pre- 
pared and  delivered  an  address,  most  interesting  and 
profoundly  learned,  on  Welsh  musical  history.  He 
and  his  house  party  were  conveyed  to  the  place  of 
meeting  in  quasi-royal  carriages,  preceded  and  fol- 
lowed by  outriders,  and  for  a  series  of  nights  he  pro- 
vided the  inhabitants  of  the  town  with  balls,  con- 
certs, or  entertainments  of  other  kinds.  No  host 
could  have  been  more  gracious  than  he.  On  the 
last  night  of  my  visit  there  was  a  gathering  prac- 
tically private.  The  heroine  of  this  was  old  Lady 
Llanover,  who,  though  not  a  native  of  Wales,  was 
an  enthusiast  for  all  things  Welsh.  She  had  brought 
with  her  in  her  train  a  bevy  of  her  own  female  do- 
mestics, who  wore  steeple-crowned  hats,  and  also  an 
old  butler  dressed  up  like  a  bard.  These  were  all 
arranged  on  a  dais,  and  sang  national  melodies ;  and 
when  the  performance  was  finished  Lord  Bute,  with 
a  charming  smile,  presented  Lady  Llanover  with  a 
ring.  This  bore  on  its  large  gem  an  engraving  of  a 
Welsh  harp,  below  which  was  the  motto  in  Welsh, 
"The  language  of  the  soul  is  in  its  strings." 

Among  my  fellow  guests  at  the  Castle  was  a 
singularly  interesting  personage — Mr.  George  Clark 
of  Talygarn.  Mr.  Clark,  in  alliance  with  Lord  Wim- 
borne,  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  development 
of  the  Dowlais  steel  works,  and  he  was  at  the  same 
time  one  of  the  greatest  genealogists  and  heraldic 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

antiquarians  of  his  day.  I  was  intimate  with  him 
till  his  death,  and  have  been  intimate  with  his 
family  ever  since. 

Apart  from  St.  Michael's  Mount,  there  are  two 
old  houses  in  Cornwall  which  year  after  year  I  visited 
for  some  part  of  December,  proceeding  thence  to  a 
third  for  a  Christmas  gathering  in  Worcestershire, 
and  to  a  fourth — this  was  in  Yorkshire — for  the 
celebration  of  the  New  Year. 

The  Cornish  houses  of  which  I  speak  were  Heligan, 
near  Mevagissy,  the  home  of  the  John  Tremaynes, 
and  Trevarthenick,  near  Truro,  the  home  of  Sir 
Louis  and  Lady  Molesworth.  Pale  externally  with 
the  stucco  of  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  neither  of  these  substantial  houses  has  any  re- 
semblance to  a  castle ;  but  the  ample  rooms  and  stair- 
cases, the  dark  mahogany  doors  and  the  far-planted 
woods  of  each  represented  in  some  subtle  way  the 
Cornish  country  gentlemen  as  they  were  in  the 
days  before  rotten  boroughs  were  abolished.  Within 
a  few  miles'  radius  of  Trevarthenick  were  two  little 
agricultural  townlets,  hardly  more  than  villages, 
which  together  were  represented  in  those  days  by 
four  members  of  Parliament.  Old  Lady  Moles- 
worth,  Sir  Louis's  remarkable  mother,  who  when  she 
was  ninety-five  was  as  vigorous  as  most  women  of 
sixty,  looked  on  any  landowner  as  a  parvenu  who 
had  not  been  a  territorial  magnate  before  the  days 
of  Henry  VIII.  When  I  think  of  these  people  and 
their  surroundings  I  am  reminded  of  an  opinion  I 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

once  expressed  to  an  artist  well  known  as  a  luminary 
of  some  new  school  of  painting.  When  I  met  him 
at  the  house  of  a  friend  he  told  me  that  he  had 
abandoned  painting,  and  was  applying  his  artistic 
principles  to  the  manufacture  of  furniture.  He 
kindly  explained  to  me  in  somewhat  technical 
language  what  the  principles  of  the  new  art  as  ap- 
plied to  furniture  were.  I  apologized  for  my  in- 
ability to  understand  them,  and  confessed  to  him 
that  my  own  taste  in  furniture  was  not  so  much 
artistic  as  political,  and  that  the  kind  of  chair,  for 
example,  which  gave  me  most  satisfaction  was  one 
that  had  been  made  and  used  before  the  first  Reform 
bill. 

The  houses  already  referred  to  as  successive 
scenes  of  Christmas  and  New  Year  visits  were 
Hewel  Grange,  Lord  Plymouth's,  near  Bromsgrove, 
and  Byram,  Sir  John  Ramsden's,  about  twenty 
miles  from  York. 

Hewel  Grange,  which  has  taken  the  place  of  an 
old  house,  now  abandoned,  is  itself  entirely  modern. 
Of  all  the  considerable  houses  built  in  England  during 
the  last  thirty  years,  it  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  most 
perfect  as  a  specimen  of  architecture.  Externally 
its  style  is  that  of  the  early  seventeenth  century,  but 
its  great  hall  is  a  monument  of  Italian  taste  subdued 
to  English  traditions  and  the  'ways  of  English  life. 
New  though  the  structure  is,  the  red  sandstone  of 
its  walls  and  gables  has  been  already  so  colored  by 
the  weather  that  they  look  like  the  growth  of  cen- 

160 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tunes,  and  whatever  is  exotic  in  the  interior  carries 
the  mind  back  to  the  times  of  John  of  Padua. 

To  pass  from  Hewel  to  Byram  was  to  pass  from  one 
world  to  another,  though  both  were  saturated  with 
traditions  of  old  English  life.  Byram,  standing  as  it 
does  in  a  territory  of  absolutely  flat  deer  park,  gives, 
with  its  stuccoed  walls  and  narrow,  oblong  windows, 
no  hint  of  intended  art.  Parts  of  it  are  of  consider- 
able age,  but  it  represents  as  a  whole  the  dignified 
utilitarianism  of  the  Yorkshire  country  gentleman 
as  he  was  from  a  hundred  to  two  hundred  years  ago. 
Sir  John  himself,  familiar  with  political  office,  accom- 
plished as  a  classical  scholar,  and  endowed  with  one 
of  the  most  charming-  of  voices,  was  of  all  country 
gentlemen  the  most  perfect  whom  it  has  ever  been 
my  lot  to  know.  He  was  cradled  in  the  traditions 
of  Whiggism,  and  to  me  one  of  his  most  delightful 
attributes  was  inability  to  assimilate  the  spirit  of 
modern  Liberalism,  whether  in  the  sphere  of  politics 
or  of  social  or  religious  thought. 

With  Byram  my  memory  associated  two  neighbor- 
ing houses — Fryston,  then  the  home  of  Lord  Hough- 
ton,  and  Kippax,  that  of  the  Blands.  Fryston  was 
filled  with  books,  and  it  was  in  my  early  days  con- 
stantly filled  with  celebrities,  generally  of  a  miscel- 
laneous, sometimes  of  an  incongruous,  kind.  Sir 
John  Ramsden  told  me  that  once,  when  he  had  been 
asked  to  dine  there  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  some 
bishop  whose  name  he  could  not  read  (for  Lord 
Houghton  wrote  a  very  illegible  hand),  the  most 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

reverent  of  the  assembled  guests  could  hardly  for- 
bear from  smiling  when  their  host,  having  left  them 
for  a  moment,  came  back  bringing  the  bishop  with 
him.  The  bishop  was  a  negro,  with  a  face  as  black 
as  his  own  silk  apron. 

Kippax,  which  is  close  to  Fryston,  was,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  a  fairly  large,  but  not  notably 
large,  building,  but  when  Lord  Rockingham  began 
the  construction  of  Wentworth  the  late  Mr.  Eland's 
ancestor  declared  that,  whatever  happened,  he  would 
not  be  outbuilt  by  anybody,  and  that  Kippax,  in 
spite  of  Wentworth,  should  be  the  longest  house  in 
Yorkshire.  He  accordingly  extended  its  frontage  by 
the  addition  of  two  wings,  which  really  were  for  the 
most  part  a  succession  of  narrow  outbuildings 
masked  by  classical  walls  of  imposing  and  balanced 
outline,  the  result  being  that  a  dwelling  which  is 
practically  of  very  moderate  dimensions  confronts 
the  world  with  a  f agade  of  more  than  seven  hundred 
feet. 

A  house  differing  in  character  from  any  of  those 
just  mentioned  is  Stanway,  where  I  have  stayed  as 
the  guest  of  the  then  Lady  Elcho.  It  variegates 
with  its  pointed  gables  the  impending  slopes  and 
foliage  of  the  outlying  Cotswold  Hills.  It  is  a  beau- 
tiful building  in  itself — but  the  key  to  its  special 
charm  was  for  me  to  be  found  in  certain  pictures, 
void  of  all  technical  merit,  and  relegated  to  twilight 
passages — pictures  representing,  with  an  obvious 

and  minute  fidelity,  scenes  from  the  life  lived  there 

162 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

during  the  times  of  the  first  two  Georges.  One  of 
these  shows  the  milkmaids  going  home  from .  their 
work  arrayed  in  striped  petticoats,  and  carrying 
their  milk  pails  on  tKeir  heads.  Others  show  mem- 
bers of  the  family  enjoying  themselves  in  the  garden 
or  setting  out  for  a  ride,  while  the  clergyman  of  the 
parish,  or  the  chaplain,  is  pacing  one  of  the  walks  in 
solitary  meditation,  with  a  telescope  under  his  arm. 

At  Lyme,  in  Cheshire,  the  ancient  home  of  the 
Leghs,  which  owes  its  present  magnificence  to  Leone, 
the  Georgian  architect,  by  whom  Chats  worth  was 
renovated,  other  pictures  of  a  similar  kind  abound. 
In  the  days  of  the  first  Lord  Newton  I  visited 
Lyme  frequently,  and  was  often  late  for  breakfast 
because  as  I  went  through  the  passages  I  could 
not  detach  myself  from  a  study  of  these  appealing 
records. 

Of  houses  no  less  typical  of  the  country  life  of 
England  I  can  give  a  further  example  without  quit- 
ting the  Cotswolds.  I  allude  to  Sherborne — the 
late  Lord  Sherborne  was  one  of  my  earliest  friends — 
with  its  two  principal  frontages  enriched  by  Inigo 
Jones  with  clusters  of  Corinthian  columns — a  house 
still  happily  remote  from  railways  and  towering 
chimneys.  The  late  Lady  Sherborne,  like  the 
Duchess  of  Cleveland  at  Raby,  kept  an  album,  to 
which,  whenever  she  could,  she  extorted  a  contri- 
bution in  verse  or  otherwise  from  her  friends.  My 
own  contribution  on  one  occasion  was  this — it  was 
written  at  the  close  of  a  visit  at  Whitsuntide : 

163 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

When  June  fevers  London  with  riot, 

I  regretfully  dream  of  the  day 
When  shadow  and  sunshine  and  quiet 

Were  alive  in  your  woodlands  in  May. 

4P* 

I  remember  your  oaks  and  your  beeches. 

I  remember  the  cuckoo's  reply 
To  the  ring  dove  that  moaned  where  the  reaches 

Of  the  Windrush  are  blue  with  the  sky. 

Of  country  houses  which  I  have  known  in  Scotland 
I  shall  speak  later,  in  connection  with  extraneous 
incidents.  Of  such  houses  in  Ireland,  of  which  I 
have  known  several,  it  will  be  enough  to  mention 
one.  This  is  Tullamore  in  County  Down,  the  home 
of  Strange,  Lord  Roden  and  Lady  Roden,  to  the 
latter  of  whom  I  have  referred  already.  It  is  from 
my  visits  at  Tullamore  that  most  of  my  knowledge 
of  Ireland,  such  as  it  is,  is  derived.  For  many  suc- 
cessive years  I  spent  at  Tullamore  most  of  the  early 
autumn.  There  were  a  few  other  old  friends  whom, 
in  addition  to  myself,  Lady  Roden  was  accustomed  to 
ask  for  similar  periods,  while  the  company  was  con- 
stantly augmented  by  others,  mostly  Irish,  who 
stayed  there  for  several  days.  Among  these  was 
Mrs.  Ronalds — one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  Ameri- 
can ladies  of  London,  who  spent  most  of  her  autumn 
with  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Ritchie,  at  Belfast.  More 
kindly  and  accomplished  entertainers  than  Lord 
and  Lady  Roden  it  would  not  be  easy  to  imagine. 
Tullamore  stands  among  great  beech  woods  and 
gardens  on  one  side  of  a  valley,  at  the  bottom  of 

164 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which,  half  hidden  by  rhododendrons,  an  amber- 
colored  stream  descends  in  waterfalls  to  the  sea. 
The  slopes  opposite  to  the  house  are  thickly  fledged 
with  larches  up  to  a  certain  height,  when  they  sud- 
denly give  place  to  the  wildness  of  the  Mourne 
Mountains.  The  house  externally  is  of  more  or  less 
modern  aspect,  but  within,  when  I  knew  it,  it  was 
full  of  fine  family  portraits,  books,  and  old  collec- 
tions of  china,  together  with  certain  other  objects 
which  appealed  to  the  sense  of  history  rather  than 
to  that  of  art.  The  Rodens  having  been  among  the 
chief  of  the  Orange  families  of  Ireland,  a  series  of 
cabinets  which  stood  in  a  long  gallery  would  be 
found  on  examination  to  contain  a  collection  of 
engraved  wineglasses,  each  of  which  bore  the  in- 
scription "God  save  King  William,"  or  else  "To 
Hell  with  the  Pope. ' '  I  remember  also  that  a  number 
of  fine  Dutch  mirrors,  which  were  plainly  designed 
for  ladies  in  the  act  of  doing  their  hair,  had  been 
rendered  useless  for  this  important  purpose  by  the 
fact  that  the  whole  of  their  surfaces  were  covered 
by  delineations  of  King  William  on  horseback, 
gesticulating  at  the  battle  of  the  Boyne. 

Such  sketches  of  the  country  houses  that  have 
been  known  to  me  might  be  very  easily  multiplied — 
houses  of  which,  whenever  I  think  of  them,  memories 
come  back  to  me  like  the  voices  of  evening  rooks. 
But  these  will  be  sufficient,  so  far  as  England  and 
Ireland  are  concerned,  to  illustrate  certain  portions 
of  my  life  other  than  that  of  London,  and  I  will  for 
12  •  165 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  moment  turn  from  those  portions  to  others, 
which  were  spent  by  me  for  many  years  not  at  home, 
but  abroad. 

Not  long  after  my  Oxford  career  was  ended,  a 
family  with  which  I  was  closely  connected  was,  in 
consequence  of  the  illness  of  one  of  its  members, 
advised  by  doctors  to  pass  the  winter  at  Cannes,  and, 
as  soon  as  my  friends  were  settled  there,  I  was  asked 
to  go  out  and  join  them.  A  diminutive  villa  next 
to  their  own  was  secured  for  me.  Its  windows 
opened  on  an  equally  diminutive  garden,  in  which 
orange  trees  with  their  golden  globes  surrounded  a 
spurting  fountain,  while,  rising  from  the  depths  of  a 
great  garden  below — a  garden  pertaining  to  a  villa 
built  like  a  Moorish  mosque — were  the  tall  spires  of 
cypresses  and  the  yellow  clouds  of  mimosa  trees. 
In  this  hermitage,  which  seemed,  under  southern 
moons,  to  open  on  a  world  like  that  of  The  Arabian 
Nights,  I  remained  for  about  two  months,  and 
wrote  there  the  later  portions  of  my  book  Is  Life 
Worth  Living?  Social  life  at  Cannes  had  all  the 
charm  and  none  of  the  constant  unrest  of  London, 
and  its  atmosphere  so  enchanted  me  that  I  spent 
for  many  years  the  best  part  of  my  winters  on  the 
Riviera,  though  I  subsequently  varied  my  program 
by  a  month  or  so  at  Pau  or  Biarritz,  and  more  than 
once  at  Florence.  On  later  occasions,  of  which  I 
shall  speak  hereafter,  I  went  farther  afield,, and  saw 
something  of  what  life  was  like  in  an  old  Hungarian 
castle;  in  the  half -Gothic  dwellings  and  arcaded 

166 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

courts  of  Cyprus;  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  Fifth 
Avenue;  and  also  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan, 
along  which  the  great  esplanade  of  Chicago  now 
extends  itself  for  more  than  eleven  miles. 

Of  my  experiences  in  foreign  countries,  just  as  of 
those  in  Scotland,  I  shall  have  to  speak  again ;  but  I 
will  first  return'  to  those  portions  of  my  early  life 
which,  with  the  exception  of  an  annual  few  months 
in  London,  I  spent  for  the  most  part  on  the  Riviera, 
in  Italy,  or  in  Devonshire,  or  in  country  visits  at 
houses  such  as  those  which  I  have  just  mentioned, 
and  I  will  record  what,  beneath  the  surface,  my  life 
and  my  mental  purposes  in  these  often-changed 
scenes  were. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FROM    COUNTRY   HOUSES   TO   POLITICS 

First  Treatise  on  Politics — Radical  Propaganda — First  Visit  to 
the  Highlands — The  Author  Asked  to  Stand  for  a  Scotch 
Constituency 

^T^HE  sketches  which  I  have  just  given  of  my 
purely  social  experiences  may  seem,  so  far  as 
J^»  they  go,  to  represent  a  life  which,  since  the 
production  of  The  New  Republic,  was  mainly  a  life 
of  idleness.  I  may,  however,  say,  without  im- 
modesty, that,  if  taken  as  a  whole,  it  was  the  very 
reverse  of  this.  Whether  the  results  of  my  industry 
may  prove  to  have  any  value  or  not,  nobody  could 
in  reality  have  been  more  industrious  than  myself,  or 
have  prosecuted  his  industry  on  more  coherent  lines. 
I  have  already  given  some  account  of  The  New 
Republic,  indicating  its  character,  its  construction, 
the  mood  which  gave  rise  to  it,  and  the  moral  it  was 
intended  to  express.  This  moral — the  fruit  of  my 
education  at  Oxford,  and  also  of  my  experiences  of 
society  before  I  became  familiar  with  the  wider 
world  of  London — was,  as  I  have  said  already,  that 
without  religion  life  is  reduced  to  an  absurdity,  and 
that  all  philosophy  which  aims  at  eliminating  religion 
and  basing  human  values  on  some  purely  natural 
substitute  is,  if  judged  by  the  same  standards,  as 
absurd  as  those  dogmas  of  orthodoxy  which  the 

168 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

naturalists  are  attempting  to  supersede.  With  the 
purpose  of  emphasizing  this  contention  in  a  yet  more 
trenchant  way,  I  supplemented,  as  I  have  said 
already,  The  New  Republic  by  a  short  satirical  ro- 
mance, Positivism  on  an  Island,  in  the  manner  of 
Voltaire's  Candide.  My  next  work,  Is  Life  Worth 
Living?  in  which  I  elaborated  this  argument  by  the 
methods  of  formal  logic,  was  largely  due  to  that 
wider  knowledge  of  the  world  with  which  social  life 
in  London  and  elsewhere  had  infected  me.  The  bit- 
terest criticism  which  that  work  excited  was  based 
on  the  contention  that  the  kind  of  life  there  analyzed 
was  purely  artificial,  and  unsatisfying  for  that  very 
reason — that  the  book  was  addressed  only  to  an  idle 
class,  and  that  from  the  conditions  of  this  pampered 
minority  no  conclusions  were  deducible  which  had' 
any  meaning  for  the  multitude  of  average  men. 
Some  such  objection  had  been  anticipated  from  the 
first  by  myself.  I  was  already  prepared  to  meet  it, 
and  my  answer  was  in  brief  as  follows,  "If  life  with- 
out a  God  is  unsatisfying,  even  to  those  for  whom 
this  world  has  done  its  utmost,  how  much  more 
unsatisfying  must  it  be  to  that  vast  majority  for 
whom  a  large  part  of  its  pleasures  are,  from  the 
nature  of  things,  impossible."  But  a  closer  and 
wider  acquaintance  with  the  kind  of  life  in  question, 
and  the  sorrows  and  passions  masked  by  it,  prompted 
me  to  translate  the  argument  of  the  three  books  just 
mentioned  into  yet  another  form — namely,  that  of  a 
tragic  novel — A  Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

169 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

This  book  was  attacked  by  the  apostles  of  non- 
religious  morality  with  a  bitterness  even  greater 
than  that  which  had  been  excited  in  them  by  Is 
Life  Worth  Living?  And  with  these  critics  were 
associated  many  others,  who,  whether  they  agreed 
or  disagreed  with  its  purely  religious  tendencies, 
denounced  it  because  it  dealt  plainly  with  certain 
corruptions  of  human  nature,  the  very  mention  of 
which,  according  to  them,  was  in  itself  corrupting, 
and  was  an  outrage  of  the  decorums  of  a  respectable 
Christian  home.  Since  those  days  the  gravest  re- 
views and  newspapers  have  dealt  with  such  matters 
in  language  far  more  plain  and  obtrusively  crude 
than  mine,  and  often  displaying  a  much  more  re- 
stricted sense  of  the  ultimate  problems  connected 
with  them.  Certain  critics,  indeed — among  whom 
were  many  Catholic  priests,  with  the  experience  of 
the  confessional  to  guide  them — took  a  very  dif- 
ferent line,  and  welcomed  the  book  as  a  serious 
and  valuable  contribution  to  the  psychology  of 
spiritual  aspiration  as  dependent  on  supernatural 
faith. 

Put  briefly,  the  story  of  the  novel  is  this.  The 
heroine,  who  is  young,  but  not  in  her  first  girlhood, 
has  in  her  aspect  and  her  natural  disposition  every- 
thing that  is  akin  to  the  mystical  aspirations  of  the 
saint;  but,  more  or  less  desolated  by  the  diffused 
skepticism  of  the  day,  she  has  been  robbed  of  in- 
nocence by  a  man,  an  old  family  friend,  and  has 
never  been  at  peace  with  herself  or  wholly 

170 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

escaped  from  his  sinister  power  since.  The  hero, 
who  meets  her  by  accident,  and  with  whom  she  is 
led  into  a  half-reluctant  friendship,  has  at  first  no 
suspicion  of  the  actual  facts  of  her  history,  but 
believes  her  troubles,  at  which  she  vaguely  hints, 
to  be  due  merely  to  the  loss  of  religious  beliefs  which 
were  once  her  guide  and  consolation.  He  accordingly 
does  his  best,  though  deprived  of  faith  himself,  to 
effect  in  her  what  Plato  calls  "a  turning  round  of 
the  soul,"  and  hopes  that  he  may  achieve  in  the 
process  his  own  conversion  also.  For  aid  in  his  per- 
plexities he  betakes  himself  to  a  Catholic  priest, 
once  a  well-known  man  of  the  world,  and  calls  her 
attention  to  the  immortal  passage  in  St.  Augustine, 
beginning,  "If  to  any  the  tumult  of  the  flesh  were 
hushed,  hushed  the  images  of  earth  and  air  and 
heaven."  But  he  feels  as  though  he  were  the  blind 
endeavoring  to  lead  the  blind,  and  the  end  comes 
at  last  in  the  garden  of  a  Mediterranean  villa,  behind 
whose  lighted  windows  a  fancy  ball  is  in  progress. 
The  hero,  whose  dress  for  the  occasion  is  that  of  a 
Spanish  peddler,  encounters  the  seducer  in  one  of 
the  shadowy  walks  and  is  shot  dead  by  the  latter, 
who  believes  that  his  life  is  being  threatened  by  some 
genuine  desperado ;  and  the  heroine,  draped  in  white, 
like  a  Greek  goddess  of  purity,  witnesses  this  sudden 
event,  is  overcome  by  the  shock,  and  dies  of  heart 
failure  on  a  marble  bench  close  by. 

One  of  the  stoutest  defenders  of  this  book  was  Lord 
Houghton,  who,  in  writing  to  me  with  regard  to  it, 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

mentioned  a  curious  incident.  The  villain  of  the 
piece,  Colonel  Stapleton,  was  drawn  by  me  from  a 

certain  Lord ,  as  to  whom  I  had  said  to  myself 

the  first  moment  I  met  him:  "This  man  is  the  quin- 
tessence of  selfishness.  He  is  capable  of  anything 
that  would  minister  to  his  own  pleasures."  "The 
novel,"  said  Lord  Houghton  in  his  letter,  "requires 
no  apology.  You  have  made  only  one  mistake  in  it. 
The  conduct  of  the  colonel  in  one  way  would  have 
differed  from  that  which  you  ascribe  to  him.  For 
instance,"  Lord  Houghton  continued,  "I  once  met 
Lord  X.  in  Paris,  and  to  my  own  knowledge  what 
Lord  X.  would  have  done  on  a  similar  occasion  was 
so-and-so."  Lord  X.  was  the  very  man  from  whom 
my  picture  of  the  colonel  had  been  drawn. 

Some  years  later  I  published  another  novel,  The 
^Old  Order  Changes,  of  which  the  affection  of  a  man 
for  a  woman  is  again  one  of  the  main  subjects,  but 
it  is  there  regarded  from  a  widely  different  stand- 
point. I  shall  speak  of  this  book  presently,  but  I 
may  first  mention  that  in  the  interval  between  the 
two  a  new  class  of  questions,  of  which  at  Little- 
hampton  and  Oxford  I  had  been  but  vaguely  con- 
scious, took  complete  possession  of  my  mind,  and 
pushed  for  a  time  the  interests  which  had  been 
previously  engaging  me  into  the  background. 

This  change  was  due  to  the  following  causes, 
which  partly  produced,  and  were  partly  produced 
by,  one  of  the  earlier  outbreaks  in  this  country  of 
what  is  now  called  "social  unrest."  The  doctrines. 

173 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  Karl  Marx,  which  had  long  been  obscurely  fer- 
menting in  the  minds  of  certain  English  malcontents, 
now  began  for  the  first  time  in  this  country  to  be 
adopted  by  a  body  of  such  men  as  the  basis  of  an 
organized  party — a  party  which  they  ambitiously 
named  "The  Social  Democratic  Federation."  The 
main  object  of  these  persons  was  the  confiscation  of 
all  private  capital.  Another  agitation  had  been  initi- 
ated by  Henry  George,  which  in  this  country  was 
much  more  widely  popular,  and  which  had  for  its 
object  the  confiscation  not  of  private  capital,  but 
simply  and  solely  of  privately  owned  land.  Mean- 
while Bright,  who  was  certainly  not  a  Socialist  (for 
he  defended  the  rights  of  capital  in  many  of  their 
harshest  forms),  had  been  attacking  private  land- 
lordism on  the  ground  not  that  it  was  in  itself  an 
economic  abuse,  as  George  taught,  but  that  in  this 
country  it  formed,  under  existing  conditions,  the 
basis  of  an  aristocratic  class.  Finally  there  was 
Ruskin,  who  had,  since  the  days  when  I  first  knew 
him  at  Oxford,  been  attempting  to  excite  sympathy 
with  some  vague  project  of  revolution  by  rewriting 
economic  science  in  terms  of  sentiment  which  some- 
times, but  only  on  rare  occasions,  struck  fire  by 
chance  contact  with  the  actual  facts  of  life.  It  is 
hardly  surprising  that  such  ideas  as  these,  jumbled 
together  by  a  mob  in  Trafalgar  Square,  took  prac- 
tical form,  on  a  certain  memorable  occasion,  in  a 
looting  of  shops  in  Piccadilly — an  enterprise  insti- 
gated by  men  one  of  whom,  enlightened  by  disillu- 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

sion,  has  subsequently  earned  respect  as  a  grave 
cabinet  minister. 

As  for  myself,  the  most  pertinacious  conviction 
which  these  movements  forced  on  me  was  that, 
whatever  elements  of  justice  and  truth  might  lurk 
in  them,  they  were  based  on  wild  distortions  of 
historical  and  statistical  facts,  or  on  an  ignorance 
even  more  remarkable  of  the  actual  dynamics  of 
industry,  of  the  powers  of  the  average  worker,  and 
of  the  motives  by  which  he  is  actuated. 

Dominated  by  this  conviction,  which  for  me  was 
verified  every  time  I  opened  a  newspaper,  I  found 
myself  daily  devoting  more  and  more  of  my  time 
to  the  task  of  reducing  this  chaos  of  revolutionary 
thought  to  order.  But  what  most  sharply  awakened 
me  to  the  need  for  such  a  work  was  an  incident  which, 
before  it  took  place,  would  have,  so  I  thought,  a 
tendency  to  lull  my  anxieties  for  a  time  rather  than 
to  maintain  or  stimulate  them. 

I  had  regarded  the  revolutionary  mood  as  mainly, 
if  not  exclusively,  an  emanation  from  those  hotbeds 
of  urban  industry  in  which  the  modern  industrial 
system  has  reached  its  most  complete  development, 
and  I  pictured  to  myself  the  more  remote  districts 
of  the  kingdom — especially  the  Highlands  of  Scot- 
land— as  still  the  scenes  of  an  idyllic  and  almost 
undisturbed  content.  As  to  the  rural  counties  of 
England,  I  was,  so  I  think,  correct,  but,  as  to  the 
Scottish  Highlands,  the  truth  of  my  ideas  in  this 
respect  still  remained  to  be  tested.  To  me 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Highlands  were  thus  far  nothing  more  than  a  name. 
I  was  therefore  delighted  when  one  morning  I  re- 
ceived an  invitation  from  Lord  and  Lady  Howard 
of  Glossop,  to  stay  with  them  for  some  weeks  at 
Dorlin,  their  remote  Highland  home. 

Dorlin,  which  had  been  bought  by  Lord  Howard 
from  his  connection,  Mr.  Hope  Scott,  is  situated  on 
the  borders  of  a  sea  loch,  Loch  Moidart,  and  of  all 
places  in  Scotland  it  then  enjoyed  the  repute  of 
being  one  of  the  least  accessible.  The  easiest  means 
of  reaching  it  was  by  a  long  day's  journey  in  a  rudely 
appointed  cattle  boat,  which  twice  a  week  left  Oban 
at  noon,  carrying  a  few  passengers,  and  reached  at 
nightfall  the  rude  pier  of  Salen,  about  nine  miles 
from  the  house.  To  my  unaccustomed  eyes  the 
descent  from  the  sleeping  car  at  Oban,  with  the 
vision  which  greeted  them  of  sea  and  heathery 
mountain,  was  like  walking  into  the  Waverley 
Novels.  As  I  followed  a  barrow  of  luggage  to  the 
pier  from  which  the  steamer  started,  I  expected  to 
see  Fergus  Maclvors  everywhere.  This  expectation 
was  not  altogether  fulfilled;  but  at  last,  when  the 
pier  was  reached,  I  knew  not  which  thrilled  me  most 
— the  smallness  and  rudeness  of  the  vessel  to  which 
I  was  about  to  commit  myself  or  the  majesty  of  a 
kilted  being  who  so  bristled  with  daggers  that  even 
Fergus  Maclvor  might  have  been  afraid  of  him. 
Not  till  later  did  I  learn  that  the  name  of  this  ap- 
parition was  Jones;  but  even  if  I  had  known  it 
then,  no  resulting  disillusion  could  have  marred  the 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

adventurous  romance  of  the  voyage  which  was  now 
awaiting  me. 

It  was  a  voyage  of  astonishing  and,  to  me,  wholly 
novel  beauty.  The  islands  which  we  passed,  or  at 
which  we  stopped,  wore  all  the  colors  of  all  the  grape 
clusters  of  the  world,  until  these  were  dimmed  by 
slowly  approaching  twilight,  when  we  found  our- 
selves at  rest, in  the  harbor  of  Tobermory  in  Mull. 
We  waited  there  for  more  than  an  hour,  while  leisure- 
ly boats  floated  out  to  us,  laden  with  sheep  and  cattle, 
which  were  gradually  got  on  board  in  exchange  for 
some  other  cargo.  Then,  with  hardly  a  ripple,  our 
vessel  was  again  in  motion,  its  bows  pointing  to 
the  mouth  of  Loch  Salen  opposite.  By  and  by,  in 
the  dimness  of  the  translucent  evening,  our  vessel 
stopped  once  more — I  could  not  tell  why  or  wherefore, 
till  a  splash  of  oars  was  heard  and  some  bargelike 
craft  was  decipherable  emerging  out  of  the  gloom 
to  meet  us.  Into  this,  as  though  in  a  dream,  a  num- 
ber of  sheep  were  lowered;  and  we,  resuming  our 
course,  found  ourselves  at  last  approaching  a  small 
rocky  protrusion,  on  which  a  lantern  glimmered, 
and  which  proved  to  be  Salen  pier. 

Gallic  accents  reached  us,  mixed  with  some  words 
of  English.  With  the  aid  of  adroit  but  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable figures,  I  found  myself  stumbling  over 
the  boulders  of  which  the  pier  was  constructed,  and 
realized  that  a  battered  wagonette,  called  "the  ma- 
chine," was  awaiting  me.  A  long  drive  among 
masses  of  mountain  followed.  At  last  a  gleam  of 

176 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

waters  was  once  again  discernible.  The  road,  rough 
and  sandy,  ran  close  to  little  breaking  waves,  and 
then,  in  the  shadow  of  woods  and  overhanging  rocks, 
numerous  lights  all  of  a  sudden  showed  themselves. 
The  machine  with  a  lurch  entered  something  in 
the  nature  of  a  carriage  drive,  and  I  found  myself 
on  the  threshold  of  Dorlin — a  lodge  of  unusual 
size,  which  seemed  to  be  almost  wading  in  the 
water.  When  the  door  opened  I  was  greeted  by 
an  odor  of  peat  smoke.  An  old  London  butler  con- 
ducted me  up  a  flight  of  stairs,  and  I  was  presently 
in  a  drawing-room  filled  with  familiar  figures.  Be- 
sides my  host  and  hostess  and  their  then  unmarried 
daughters,  were  Lady  Herbert  of  Lee,  Lord  Hough- 
ton,  the  Verulams,  and  the  most  delightful  of  priests, 
Father  Charles  Macdonald,  famous  as  a  fisherman, 
inimitable  as  a  teller  of  stories,  and  great-grandson 
of  fighters  who  had  died  for  Prince  Charlie  at  Cullo- 
den.  One  guest  at  Dorlin,  who  had  left  just  before 
my  arrival,  was  the  then  Lord  Lome,  and  I  was 
told  by  Lady  Howard  that  the  boatmen  who  had 
helped  him  to  land — Catholic  Macdonalds  all  of 
them — had  been  heard  saying  to  one  another  that 
"not  so  very  long  ago  no  Campbell  would  have 
dared  to  set  foot  in  the  Macdonald  country."  Not 
far  away  there  were  still  living  at  that  time  two  old 
ladies — Macdonalds — whose  small  house  was  a  mu- 
seum of  Stuart  relics,  and  who  still  spoke  of  the 
Pretender  with  bated  breath  as  "the  King." 

Here,  indeed,  were  conditions  closely  resembling 

177 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

those  to  which  I  had  looked  forward.  The  past 
was  once  more  present.  The  modern  spirit  of  un- 
rest had,  so  it  seemed  to  me,  retreated  to  some  in- 
credible distance. 

Lord  Houghton,  Father  Charles,  one  of  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  house,  and  I  invariably  beguiled  the 
evenings  with  a  rubber  of  modest  whist.  Lord 
Houghton  was  to  leave  on  a  Monday  morning, 
and  as  soon  as  the  dinner  of  Sunday  night  was  over 
he  hurried  us  to  our  places  at  the  card  table  for 
another  and  a  concluding  game.  Much  to  his  sur- 
prise and  annoyance  somebody  whispered  in  his  ear 
that  Lord  Howard,  though  an  excellent  Catholic, 
had  always  had  an  objection  to  the  playing  of  cards 
on  Sundays.  "Well,"  said  Lord  Houghton,  "we  must 
get  Lady  Herbert  to  speak  to  him  about  it."  Lady 
Herbert,  hearing  her  name,  asked  what  she  was 
wanted  to  do.  Lord  Houghton  explained,  and  she, 
in  tones  of  caressing  deprecation,  repeated  that,  as 
to  this  matter,  Lord  Howard  was  afflicted  with  a 
strong  Protestant  prejudice.  "My  dear  lady,"  said 
Lord  Houghton,  taking  both  her  hands,  "what's 
the  good  of  belonging  to  that  curious  superstition 
of  yours  if  one  mayn't  play  cards  on  Sunday?" 
Through  her  mediation  the  desired  indulgence  was 
granted.  The  game  was  played,  but  Providence 
nevertheless  chastened  Lord  Houghton,  using  me 
as  its  humble  instrument,  for  I  won  three  or  four 
pounds  from  him — the  largest,  if  not  the  only,  sum 
that  I  ever  won  at  cards  in  my  life. 

178 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Such  episodes,  imported  as  they  were  from  the 
social  world  of  England,  were  not  altogether  in 
keeping  with  the  visionary  world  of  Waverley,  but 
they  could  not  dissipate  its  atmosphere,  charged 
with  bygone  romance.  And  yet  it  was  among  these 
"distant  dreams  of  dreams"  that  my  ears  became 
first  awake  to  the  nearer  sounds  of  some  vague  social 
disturbance  of  which  Ruskin's  gospel  of  Labor,  as 
I  heard  it  at  Oxford  without  any  clear  comprehension 
of  it,  had  been  a  harbinger. 

I  had  been  asked,  when  I  left  Dorlin,  to  pay  one  or 
two  other  visits  in  the  Highlands  farther  north — to 
the  Sutherlands  at  Dunrobin,  the  Munro  Fergusons 
at  Novar,  and  the  Lovats  at  Beaufort.  My  route 
to  these  places  was  by  the  Caledonian  Canal,  and  in 
listening  to  the  conversation  of  various  groups  on 
the  steamer  I  several  times  heard  the  opinion  ex- 
pressed that,  sooner  or  later,  the  Highlands  were 
bound  to  be  the  scene  of  some  great  agrarian  revo- 
lution. I  was  well  aware  that  the  assailants  of  landed 
property,  from  Marx  and  George  down  to  the  semi- 
conservative  Bright,  to  whose  voices  had  now  been 
joined  that  of  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  had  pointed 
to  the  magnitude  of  the  greater  Highland  estates 
as  signal  types  of  the  abuses  to  which  Highland 
landlordism  is  liable;  but  not  till  I  took  that  journey 
on  the  steamer  from  Fort  William  to  Inverness  had 
I  attached  to  these  arguments  more  than  an  aca- 
demic importance. 

In  the  course  of  my  ensuing  visits  I  talked  over 

179 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  threatened  revolution  with  persons  of  much 
local  knowledge,  especially  with  one  of  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland's  agents,  and  Father  Grant,  the  chaplain 
of  the  Catholic  Lovats  at  Beaufort.  They  did  not, 
it  appeared  to  me,  take  the  threatened  revolution 
very  seriously,  and  they  showed  me  how  absurdly 
in  error  the  agitators  were  as  to  certain  of  the  facts 
alleged  by  them.  One  of  their  errors  consisted  in 
their  gross  overestimates  of  what  the  practical 
magnitude  of  the  great  Highland  properties  was,  the 
rent  of  the  Sutherland  property  being,  for  instance, 
no  more  per  acre  than  the  twentieth  part  of  an 
average  acre  in  England.  Father  Grant,  who  was  a 
learned  antiquarian,  mentioned  as  a  commonplace 
on  revolutionary  platforms  the  statement  that  in 
the  Highlands  no  such  beings  as  the  private  landlord 
existed  prior  to  the  rebellion  of  1745,  on  the  sup- 
pression of  which  the  government  stole  their  com- 
munal rights  from  the  clansmen,  turning  them  into 
tenants  at  will,  whom  the  chieftains,  now  absolute 
owners,  could  evict  and  expatriate  as  they  pleased. 
No  fiction,  said  Father  Grant,  himself  a  crofter's  son, 
could  be  more  absurd  than  this.  It  was  absolutely 
disproved,  he  said,  by  a  mass  of  medieval  charters, 
in  which  were  assigned  to  the  chieftains  by  the 
Scottish  Crown  the  fullest  territorial  rights  possible 
for  lawyers  to  devise.1 

At  the  same  time  my  informants  admitted  with 

1  Father  Grant,  at  my  suggestion,  published  one  of  these  Charters 
in  extenso  in  The  National  Review. 

180 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

regret  that  landlordism  in  the  Highlands  was  liable 
to  special  abuses,  an  instance  of  which  had  come  to 
the  fore  recently.  This  was  the  long  lease  acquired 
by  a  rich  American  of  enormous  areas  which  he 
converted  into  a  single  deer  forest,  evicting  certain 
crofters  in  the  process  with  what  was  said  to  have 
been  signal  harshness. 

All  this  information  was  to  me  extremely  interest- 
ing; but  I  left  Scotland  wishing  that  it  had  been 
more  extensive  and  methodical.  It  had,  however, 
the  effect  of  stimulating  me  in  the  work  to  which  I 
was  now  addressing  myself — that  is  to  say,  the 
elaboration  of  some  formal  and  militant  treatise,  in 
which  I  might  not  only  discredit  by  analysis  the 
main  fallacies  common  to  all  the  social  revolution- 
aries of  the  day,  but  also  indicate  the  main  facts 
and  principles  on  which  alone  a  true  science  of 
society  can  be  based.  This  work  took  the  form  of  a 
short  treatise  or  essay,  called  Social  Equality,  or  a 
Study  in  a  Missing  Science.  The  science  to  which  I 
referred  was  the  science  of  human  character  as  con- 
nected with  the  efforts  by  which  wealth  and  all  ma- 
terial civilizations  are  produced.  A  French  translation 
of  it  was  soon  issued  in  Paris.  I  was  also  asked  to 
sanction  what  I  had  no  right  to  prohibit — namely, 
translations  of  it  into  Rumanian  and  Spanish.  My 
main  object  was  to  show  that,  as  applied  to  the  proc- 
ess in  question,  "social  equality"  was  a  radically 
erroneous  formula,  the  various  efforts  to  which 
wealth  is  due  being  not  only  essentially  unequal  in 
13  181 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

themselves,  but  only  susceptible  of  stimulation  by 
the  influence  of  unequal  circumstances.  The  Radical 
doctrines  to  the  contrary,  which  were  then  being 
enunciated  with  reckless  bitterness  by  Bright,  were 
taken  to  pieces  and  exposed,  and  the  claims  of  mere 
average  labor,  as  opposed  to  those  of  the  capitalist, 
were  in  general  language  reduced  to  their  true  di- 
mensions. I  supplemented  this  volume  by  a  criti- 
cism in  The  Quarterly  Review  of  Henry  George's 
celebrated  Progress  and  Poverty,  and  Henry  George 
himself  when  he  came  to  London  told  Lady  Jeune 
(afterward  Lady  St.  Helier),  without  knowing  that  I 
was  the  author  of  it,  that  this  criticism  was  the  only 
reply  to  himself  which  was  worth  being  considered 
seriously.  I  was  conscious,  however,  of  my  own 
limitations,  these  relating  mainly  to  matters  of 
statistical  fact,  such  as  the  exact  proportion  borne 
in  a  country  like  the  United  Kingdom  by  the  aggre- 
gate rental  of  the  landlords  to  the  aggregate  income 
of  the  capitalists  on  the  one  hand  and  that  of  the 
mass  of  manual  workers  on  the  other.  I  was  con- 
scious of  being  specially  hampered  in  attempting  to 
deal  minutely  with  the  statistical  fallacies  of  Bright. 
I  was  still  in  this  state  of  mind  a  year  after  my 
first  visit  to  Dorlin  when  I  received  a  letter  from 
Lady  Howard  aslgng  me  to  come  to  them  again.  I 
went,  and  all  the  charm  of  my  first  visit  repeated  it- 
self; but  repeated  itself  with  this  difference — that  it 
was  no  longer  undisturbed.  The  possibility  of  a 
revolution  in  the  Highlands  had  now  become  a 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

matter  of  audible  discussion  even  in  the  remote 
Macdonald  country.  The  temper  of  the  sparse 
population  was  there,  indeed,  not  very  violent,  but 
the  thought  that  some  sort  of  disaffection  was  even 
there  actually  alive  would  often  disturb  my  previous 
sense  of  peace,  while  the  Glasgow  and  Edinburgh 
newspapers,  whether  by  way  of  attacking  the  estab- 
lished order  or  defending  it,  were  pelting  one  another 
with  statistical  statements  in  respect  of  which  each 
party  seemed  to  contradict  itself  almost  as  recklessly 
as  it  contradicted  its  opponents.  My  own  growing 
ambition  was  to  get  at  definite  and  detailed  infor- 
mation which  would  either  support  the  agitators  or 
else  give  them  the  lie,  and  would  also  provide  other- 
wise comprehensive  and  specific  illustrations  of  the 
general  principles  which  I  had  formulated  in  my 
late  volume.  But  as  to  the  means  by  which  com- 
prehensive information  of  this  specific  kind  could  be 
collected  I  was  still  more  or  less  at  a  loss ;  and  from 
the  vague  and  conflicting  character  of  the  statistics 
adduced  it  was  evident  that  other  people  were  in  the 
same  or  in  a  worse  condition.  That  the  required 
information  existed  somewhere  in  the  form  of  official 
and  other  records  I  was  convinced.  The  problem 
was  how  to  get  at  these  and  recast  the  information 
in  a  digested  and  generally  intelligible  form. 

The  necessity  for  doing  this  was  brought  home  to 
me  with  renewed  force  by  the  fact  that,  when  I  left 
Dorlin,  I  was  engaged  to  stay  at  Ardverikie  with  Sir 
John  Ramsden,  who  was  the  owner,  by  purchase,  of 

183 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

one  of  the  greatest  sporting  territories  in  the  High- 
lands, a  large  portion  of  which  he  was  then  planting 
with  timber.  The  first  stage  of  my  journey  from 
Dorlin  was  again  Fort  William,  where  I  slept,  and 
whence  next  morning  I  proceeded  by  an  old-fashioned 
stagecoach  to  my  destination,  which  lay  midway 
between  Fort  William  and  Kingussie.  We  had  not 
gone  far  before  I  heard  an  English  voice  shouting 
something  to  the  passengers  near  in  tones  of  great 
excitement.  The  speaker,  with  his  black  frock  coat, 
was,  to  judge  from  his  appearance,  a  Nonconformist 
English  minister,  who  was  vaguely  pointing  to  the 
mountains  on  the  left  side  of  the  road;  and  at  last 
I  managed  to  catch  a  few  words  of  his  oratory. 
They  were  in  effect  as  follows:  "What  was  there  on 
those  mountains  fifty  years  ago?  Men  were  on 
those  mountains  then.  What  will  you  find  there 
now?  Deer — no  thing  but  deer."  This  sort  of  thing 
went  on  for  some  time,  till  at  last  the  coachman,  a 
burly  Highlander,  turned  round  on  the  orator  and 
said:  "I'm  thinking  you  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about.  In  those  mountains  at  which  you're 
flourishing  your  hands  you  won't  find  a  deer  all  the 
way  from  Fort  William  to  Kingussie."  The  orator 
then,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  understand,  wandered 
away  to  the  question  of  landed  property  generally, 
and  Acts  of  Parliament  passed  in  the  reign  of  William 
and  Mary.  It  seemed,  however,  that  his  audience 
were  not  responsive,  and  he  presently  began  descant- 
ing on  the  ignorance  of  the  Highland  people  and 

184 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

their  need  of  more  education.  Here,  again,  his  elo- 
quence was  interrupted  by  the  coachman.  "Edu- 
cation," he  exclaimed.  "What  you  call  education  I 
call  the  Highland  rinderpest."  After  this  the  orator 
was  comparatively  quiet. 

Meanwhile  the  character  of  the  surrounding  land- 
scape changed.  We  began  to  see  glimpses  ahead  of 
us  of  the  waters  of  Loch  Laggan.  Presently  the 
loch,  fringed  with  birch  trees,  was  directly  below  the 
road.  On  the  opposite  side  were  mountains  de- 
scending to  its  silvery  surface,  some  of  them  bare, 
some  green  with  larches,  and  upward  from  a  wooded 
promontory  wreaths  of  smoke  were  rising.  Then 
between  the  wreaths  I  distinguished  a  tall  gray 
tower,  and  something  like  clustered  turrets.  Point- 
ing to  these,  the  coachman  pulled  up  his  horses,  and 
I  understood  him  to  say  that  at  this  point  I  must 
descend.  A  man,  who  had  evidently  been  waiting, 
came  forward  from  a  tuft  of  bracken.  My  luggage 
was  extracted  from  the  vehicle  and  dragged  down  to 
a  boat,  which  was,  as  I  now  saw,  waiting  by  the 
beach  below;  and  a  row  of  some  twenty  minutes 
took  me  across  the  loch  and  brought  me  to  my 
journey's  end. 

Ardverikie  is  a  castellated  building.  It  is  some- 
thing in  the  style  of  Balmoral,  with  which  everybody 
is  familiar  from  photographs.  It  is  surrounded  by 
old-fashioned  gardens  beyond  which  rise  the  moun- 
tains. Down  one  of  the  graveled  paths  Lady 
Guendolen  came  to  meet  me,  accompanied  by  her 

185 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

two  daughters  and  Mrs.  Arthur  Henniker,  the 
younger  daughter  of  Lord  Houghton — these,  except 
for  Sir  John,  comprising  the  whole  party.  Within 
were  paneled  walls,  innumerable  heads  of  deer,  and 
two  large  libraries  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  books, 
not  many  of  them  new,  but  all  of  inviting  aspect. 
The  pleasure  of  meeting  old  friends  under  fresh  con- 
ditions for  the  time  put  out  of  my  head  the  revolu- 
tionary orator  of  the  coach.  Indeed,  the  only 
specially  Highland  incident  talked  about  was  con- 
nected with  a  neighboring  minister,  who  was  accus- 
tomed to  conduct  on  Sundays  a  religious  service  in 
the  dining  room,  and  who  on  the  last  of  these  oc- 
casions had  unintentionally,  but  severely,  affronted 
one  member  of  the  household.  He  had  begun  with 
calling  down  the  special  blessings  of  the  Creator  on 
the  heads  of  all,  mentioned  seriatim,  who  were  con- 
gregated under  Sir  John's  roof.  "God  bless  Sir 
John,"  he  began.  "God  bless  also  her  dear  Leddy- 
ship.  Bless  the  tender  youth  of  the  two  young 
leddies  likewise.  We  also  unite  in  begging  thee  to 
have  mercy  on  the  puir  governess." 

I  had  not  been  many  days  in  the  house  before  I 
discovered  a  certain  number  of  books,  all  more  or 
less  modern,  dealing  with  Highland  conditions  as 
they  had  been  since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  These  books  were  written  from  various 
points  of  view,  and  some  of  them  were  extremely 
interesting;  but  in  every  case  there  was  one  thing 
for  which  I  looked  in  vain.  I  looked  in  vain  for 

186 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

anything  in  the  nature  of  statistical  precision,  except 
here  and  there  in  connection  with  minor  and  scat- 
tered details.  Frequent  references  were  made,  for 
example,  to  the  decline  of  the  Highland  population; 
but  no  attempt  had  apparently  been  made  by  any- 
one to  state  by  reference  to  extant  official  documents 
what  the  total  of  the  alleged  decline  had  been,  or 
whether  or  why  in  some  districts  it  had  been  greater 
or  less  than  in  others.  The  two  voluminous  works 
known  respectively  as  the  Old  and  New  Statistical 
Accounts  of  Scotland  were  full  of  significant,  but 
wholly  undigested  details.  How  should  I  succeed 
where  so  many  others  had  failed?  Where  should  I 
find  records  which  would  enable  me  to  complete  in- 
completeness and  reduce  chaos  to  some  comprehen- 
sive order?  One  afternoon,  when  I  found  myself 
alone  in  the  house,  I  was  thinking  these  things  over 
in  one  of  the  sclent  libraries,  and  staring  again  at  the 
backs  of  books  I  had  already  opened,  when,  purely 
out  of  curiosity,  I  dragged  at  hazard  a  large  and 
dusty  volume  from  a  row  of  folios  which  I  had  neg- 
lected, supposing  them  to  be  all  atlases.  I  found 
that,  instead  of  an  atlas,  the  volume  I  had  extracted 
was  a  copy  of  the  huge  Government  Report  which  is 
commonly  known  by  the  name  of  The  New  Domesday 
Book.  I  had  heard  of  this  work  before,  but  had 
never  till  now  seen  it,  nor  had  I  realized  the  nature 
of  its  contents.  The  New  Domesday  Book  was  the 
result  of  an  official  inquiry  undertaken  some  ten 

years  previously  into  the  number,  the  extent,  and 

187 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  rental  value  of  all  the  landed  properties  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland.  Here,  I  thought,  was  at  least 
a  large  installment  of  the  kind  of  evidence  of  which 
I  had  felt  the  want,  and  during  the  rest  of  my  visit 
to  Ardverikie  I  devoted  every  possible  moment  to 
a  study  of  this  volume. 

Without  going  into  details,  it  will  be  enough  to 
mention  the  broad  and  unmistakable  facts  which 
The  New  Domesday  Book  disclosed,  and  which  formed 
a  direct  counterblast,  not  to  the  oratory  of  the  High- 
land agitators  only,  but  also  to  the  wider  assertions 
of  Henry  George  and  of  Bright.  Henry  George, 
whose  statistical  knowledge  was  a  blank,  had  con- 
tented himself  with  enunciating  the  vague  doctrine 
that  in  all  modern  countries — 'the  United  States,  for 
example,  and  more  especially  the  United  Kingdom 
— every  increase  of  wealth  was  in  the  form  of  rent, 
appropriated  by  the  owners  of  the  soil,  most  of 
whom  were  millionaires  already,  or  were  very  quickly 
becoming  so.  Bright,  in  dealing  with  this  country, 
had  committed  himself  to  a  statement  which  was 
very  much  more  specific.  The  number  of  persons, 
he  said,  who  had  any  interest  as  owners  in  the  soil 
of  their  mother  country  was  not  more  than  30,000 
— or,  to  put  the  matter  in  terms  of  families,  thirty- 
four  out  of  every  thirty-five  were  "landless."  The 
New  Domesday  Book  showed  that  the  number  of 
proprietary  interests,  instead  of  being  only  30,000, 
was  considerably  more  than  a  million;  or,  in  other 
words,  the  number  of  the  "landless"  as  Bright 

188 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

stated  it  was  greater  than  the  actual  number  in  the 
proportion  of  thirty-three  to  one. 

Here  were  these  facts  accessible  in  the  thousand 
or  more  pages  of  a  great  official  survey.  They  had 
doubtless  received  some  attention  when  that  docu- 
ment was  issued,  but  the  agitators  of  the  early 
'"eighties"  had  forgotten  or  never  heard  of  them; 
and  Bright,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  retracted  his  own 
monstrous  fallacies.  How,  then,  I  asked  myself, 
should  the  actual  facts  of  this  particular  case  be 
driven  into  the  heads  of  the  public  in  a  politically 
effective  form?  And  how  should  other  cognate 
facts,  such  as  the  profits  of  the  business  employers, 
Bright  himself  being  one  of  them,  be  dragged  effec- 
tively into  light,  compared  with  the  rental  of  the 
landlords,  and  be  in  a  similar  way  brought  home  to 
the  public  consciousness?  Such  were  the  questions 
which  came  to  possess  my  mind  when  luncheons 
were  being  eaten  among  heather  by  the  pourings  of 
some  hillside  brook,  or  when  deer  at  the  close  of  the 
day  were  being  weighed  in  the  larders  of  Ardverikie. 

To  these  questions  a  partial  answer  came  sooner 
than  I  had  expected.  On  leaving  Ardverikie  I  paid 
another  visit  to  the  Lovats.  On  joining  the  train 
at  Kingussie  I  learned  that  one  of  the  passengers 
was  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  who  was,  as  an  ad- 
vanced Radical,  to  make  the  following  day  a  great 
speech  at  Inverness.  Needless  to  say,  this  speech 
turned  out  to  be  mainly  a  vituperation  of  Highland 
landlords,  I  mention  it  here  only  on  account  of  one 

189 


short  passage.  ' '  The  landlords, ' '  said  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain, "have  made  a  silence  in  the  happy  glens  which 
once  resounded  with  your  industry" — as  though 
every  wilderness  between  Cape  Wrath  and  Loch 
Lomond  had  not  so  very  long  ago  resembled  a  suburb 
of  Birmingham.  This  is  a  curious  illustration  of  how 
readily  even  a  man  of  most  acute  intellect  may  be 
led  by  the  need  of  securing  applause  at  all  costs  into 
nonsense  which,  in  calmer  moments,  he  would  him- 
self be  the  first  to  ridicule. 

As  an  antidote  to  Mr.  Chamberlain's  propa- 
ganda another  meeting  was  planned  under  the 
auspices  of  a  number  of  the  great  Highland  pro- 
prietors, who  gathered  together  to  discuss  matters  at 
Castle  Grant  (Lord  Seafield's),  the  ideal  home  of  a 
chieftain.  To  this  conclave  I  was  taken  by  my  host, 
Lord  Lovat,  from  Beaufort.  Five  chieftains  were 
present,  supported  by  five  pipers,  whose  strains 
might  have  elicited  echoes  from  the  slopes  of  the 
farthest  Grampians. 

Before  the  public  meeting  which  was  planned  at 
Castle  Grant  took  place  I  had  left  the  Lovats',  being 
called  by  business  to  England;  but  I  had  not  been 
long  in  London  before  an  opportunity  of  political 
action  was  offered  me,  in  a  manner  which  I  could 
not  resist.  My  book  Social  Equality  had,  it  seemed, 
so  far  achieved  its  object  that  a  letter  presently 
reached  me,  written  on  behalf  of  a  number  of  students 
at  the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  asking  me  whether, 
could  the  requisite  arrangements  be  made,  I  would 

190 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

be  willing,  at  the  next  election,  to  stand  as  Conserva- 
tive candidate  for  the  St.  Andrews  Boroughs,  as  the 
present  member — a  Liberal — would  before  long  re- 
tire. The  proper  authorities  were  consulted,  and, 
the  proposal  meeting  with  their  approval,  I  agreed 
to  begin  forthwith  the  needed  preliminary  work,  on 
condition  that  if  meanwhile  some  member  of  a  Fife- 
shire  family  should  be  willing  to  take  the  place  of  a 
stranger  such  as  myself,  I  should  be  allowed  to 
withdraw  and  make  room  for  him. 

In  the  end  such  a  substitute  was  found,  and  in 
due  time  was  elected.  Meanwhile,  however,  I  had 
begun  a  campaign  of  speeches  which,  so  I  was  told, 
and  so  I  should  like  to  believe,  contributed  to  his 
ultimate  victory.  At  all  events  they  enabled  me  to 
test  certain  expository  methods  which  other  speakers 
might  perhaps  reproduce  with  advantage.  As 
among  the  subjects  discussed  by  speakers  of  all 
parties,  the  land  question  generally,  and  not  in  Scot- 
land only,  continued  to  hold  the  most  prominent 
place,  I  put  together  in  logical  form  the  statistical 
data  relating  to  it,  so  far  as  I  had  been  able  to  digest 
them;  and  having  dealt  with  them  verbally  in  the 
simplest  language  possible,  I  proceeded  to  illustrate 
them  by  a  series  of  enormous  diagrams,  which  were, 
at  the  appropriate  moment,  let  down  from  the  cornice 
like  a  series  of  long  window  blinds.  One  of  these 
represented,  by  means  of  a  long  column  divided  into 
colored  sections,  the  approximate  total  of  the  income 
of  the  United  Kingdom  according  to  current  impu- 

191 

\ 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tations  and  the  enormous  portion  of  it  taken  as 
land  rent  by  the  owners  of  more  than  1,000  acres 
as  it  must  have  been  according  to  Bright.  Another 
column,  which  was  then  let  down  beside  this,  repre- 
sented in  a  similar  way  the  rental  of  the  larger  land- 
lords as  it  would  be  according  to  the  principles  laid 
down  by  Henry  George.  A  third  diagram  followed, 
which  showed  the  actual  amount  of  land  rent  as 
disclosed  by  an  analysis  of  The  New  Domesday  Book, 
so  that  all  the  audience  could  see  the  farcical  contrast 
between  the  false  figures  and  the  true. 

As  a  means  of  holding  attention,  and  making  the 
meaning  of  the  speaker  clear,  these  diagrams  were  a 
great  success,  and  I  was  invited  before  long  to  repeat 
my  exhibition  of  them  at  Aberdeen,  at  Glasgow,  and 
at  Manchester.  My  Fifeshire  speeches,  moreover, 
through  the  enterprise  of  the  Fifeshire  Journal, 
having  been  put  into  type  a  day  before  they  were 
delivered,  were  printed  in  extenso  next  morning  by 
many  great  English  newspapers,  whereas  it  is  prob- 
able that  otherwise  they  would  have  been  relegated 
to  an  obscure  paragraph.1  I  may,  I  think,  claim  for 
my  speeches  one  merit,  at  all  events — that  though 
many  of  them  were  addressed  to  meetings  prepon- 
derantly Radical,  I  so  successfully  avoided  giving 
offense  that  only  on  one  occasion,  and  then  for  some 

1  Another  method  which  I  adopted  as  a  supplement  to  ordinary 
canvassing  was  a  fortnightly  or  monthly  issue  of  a  printed  letter 
addressed  to  each  voter  individually,  which  dealt  with  statistics  and 
principles,  every  letter  inviting  questions,  which  would  be  dealt 
with  in  the  letter  following. 

192 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

moments  only,  was  I  ever  interrupted  by  dissent  of 
a  discourteous  kind;  while,  when  I  delivered  my 
speech  on  the  land  question  at  Manchester,  I  was, 
with  all  hospitable  amity,  entertained  at  a  banquet 
by  members  of  a  leading  Radical  club. 

Various  opportunities,  indeed,  were  at  that  time 
offered  me  of  entering,  had  I  been  willing  to  do  so, 
the  public  life  of  politics.  But  various  causes  with- 
held me.  One  of  these  causes  related  to  the  St. 
Andrews  Boroughs  in  particular.  My  own  home 
being  either  in  London  or  Devonshire,  frequent  jour- 
neys to  and  from  the  east  of  Scotland  proved  a  very 
burdensome  duty,  and  the  boroughs  themselves 
being  widely  separated  from  one  another,  the  task 
of  often  delivering  at  least  one  speech  in  each  was, 
in  the  days  before  motors,  a  duty  no  less  exhausting. 
Further,  I  felt  that  the  business  of  public  speaking 
would  interfere  with  a  task  which  I  felt  to  be  more 
important — namely,  that  of  providing  facts  and  prin- 
ciples for  politicians  rather  than  playing  directly 
the  part  of  a  politician  myself.  I  was  therefore  re- 
lieved rather  than  disappointed  when  a  communica- 
tion subsequently  reached  me  from  the  Conservative 
agent  at  St.  Andrews  to  the  effect  that  the  head  of 
an  important  Fifeshire  family  was  willing  to  take 
my  place  and  contest  the  constituency  instead  of 
me.  My  feelings  were  confirmed  by  a  totally 
extraneous  incident.  The  severe  reader  will  perhaps 
think  that  I  ought  to  blush  when  I  explain  what  this 
incident  was. 

193 


CHAPTER  X 
A  FIVE  MONTHS'  INTERLUDE 

A  Venture  on  the  Riviera — Monte  Carlo — Life  in  a  Villa  at  Beaulieu 
— A  Gambler's  Suicide — A  Gambler's  Funeral 

ONE  May  morning  in  London,  when  I  had 
just  completed  a  fortnight  of  political 
speaking  in  Fifeshire,  a  friend  of  mine, 
Ernest  Beckett  (afterward  the  second  Lord  Grim- 
thorpe),  came  in  a  state  of  obvious  excitement  to 
see  me,  and  talk,  so  he  said,  about  something  of 
great  importance.  He  had,  it  appeared,  been  spend- 
ing some  weeks  in  the  south  of  France,  and  was  full 
of  a  project  the  value  of  which  had,  so  he  said,  been 
amply  proved  by  experiment.  To  me  at  first  sight 
it  seemed  no  better  than  lunacy.  I  could  not  for 
some  time  even  bring  myself  to  consider  it  seriously. 
This  project  was  to  play  a  new  system  at  Monte 
Carlo.  It  was  a  system  founded  on  one  which,  de- 
vised by  Henry  Labouchere,  had  been — such  was 
Beckett's  contention — greatly  improved  by  himself, 
and  he  and  a  companion  had  been  playing  it  with 
absolutely  unbroken  success.  The  two,  with  only  a 
small  capital  in  their  pockets,  had  won  during  the 
course  of  a  week  or  so  something  like  a  thousand 
pounds — not  in  a  few  large  gains  (for  in  this  there 
would  have  been  nothing  to  wonder  at),  but  by  a 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

regular  succession  day  after  day  of  small  ones. 
They  had  tested  the  system  further  by  applying  it, 
after  their  departure,  to  the  records,  published 
daily  in  a  Monte  Carlo  journal,  of  the  order  in  which 
colors  or  numbers  had  turned  up  throughout  the 
day  preceding  at  some  particular  table.  Adjusting 
their  imaginary  stakes,  in  accordance  with  the  rules 
of  the  system,  to  these  series  of  actual  sequences,  the 
two  experimenters  had  discovered  that  their  original 
successes  were,  as  a  matter  of  theory,  infallibly  repro- 
duced. So  certain,  said  Beckett,  did  all  this  seem 
that  he  would  himself  be  in  a  position  to  secure  some 
thousands  of  pounds  of  capital  for  the  purpose  of 
renewing  the  enterprise  on  a  very  much  larger  scale. 
He  would  not  be  able  till  Christmas  to  go  out  to 
Monte  Carlo  himself,  and  for  several  reasons  he 
desired  to  remain  at  first  in  the  background ;  but  the 
capital  in  question  would,  he  said,  include  a  sum 
sufficient  to  defray  the  expenses  of  a  few  suitable 
friends,  who  would  set  to  work  meanwhile,  and  be 
entitled,  as  a  business  matter,  to  a  share  of  the 
eventual  profits.  The  coadjutors  whom  he  had  in 
view  were  myself,  the  late  Lord  Greenock,  Charles 
Bulpett,  and  Charles  Edward  Jerningham.  More- 
over, as  everything  would  depend  on  a  correct  calcu- 
lation of  the  stakes — the  amount  of  which  at  each 
coup  would  vary  with  the  results  of  the  coups  pre- 
ceding— and  as  this  calculation  would  often  be  ex- 
tremely complicated,  and  have  in  every  case  to  be 
made  with  extreme  rapidity,  a  good  deal  of  pre- 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

liminary  practice  on  the  part  of  the  intending  players 
would  be  necessary.  Would  this  little  group  of 
players  be,  as  he  hoped,  forthcoming?  I  still 
regarded  the  project  as  something  of  the  wildcat 
kind;  but  I  was  struck  by  the  undoubted  success  of 
Beckett's  own  experiments,  actual  and  theoretical, 
so  far;  and,  as  the  four  players  would  at  all  events 
lose  nothing,  even  if  they  gained  nothing,  by  renewing 
them,  I  and  the  three  others  at  last  consented  to  take 
part  in  the  venture. 

As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  London  season  was  over 
we  began  our  preparations,  which  would  necessarily 
be  somewhat  lengthy.  From  the  beginning  of  August 
up  to  the  end  of  October  we  met  again  and  again  at 
Beckett's  house  in  Yorkshire,  our  proceedings  being 
shrouded  in  serio-comic  secrecy.  In  order  that  we 
might  perfect  ourselves  in  the  use  of  our  mathemat- 
ical weapons,  each  day  after  breakfast  the  dining- 
room  table  was  cleared  and  covered  with  a  large 
green  cloth  divided  into  numbered  spaces,  like  the 
green  roulette  board  at  Monte  Carlo.  In  the  middle 
of  this  was  placed  a  large  roulette.  Rakes  were  pro- 
vided of  the  true  Monte  Carlo  pattern.  One  of  us 
played  the  part  of  croupier,  while  to  each  of  the 
others  was  allotted  a  certain  number  of  counters 
indistinguishable  in  aspect  from  twenty-franc  gold 
pieces.  Each  of  us  made  his  own  calculations  on 
cards  provided  for  the  purpose;  each  day  we  played 
solemnly  for  four  hours  on  end,  and  then  examined 
the  results.  We  sometimes  varied  this  routine  by 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

taking  one  of  the  Monte  Carlo  records,  our  croupier 
not  turning  the  wheel,  but  calling  out  the  numbers 
or  colors  seriatim  which  had  actually  turned  up  at 
the  tables  on  this  day  or  that.  The  general  results 
were,  I  must  say,  most  extraordinary.  On  only  two 
occasions  did  the  operations  of  an  entire  day  leave 
any  of  the  players  bankrupt  or  without  a  substantial 
gain,  though  they  all  started  their  work  at  different 
moments,  and  the  actual  details  of  the  staking  were 
in  no  two  cases  the  same.  Throughout  a  long  series 
of  these  experimental  meetings,  the  winnings  were 
as  a  whole  about  20  per  cent,  daily  on  the  total 
capital  risked. 

Encouraged  by  these  results,  we  had  no  sooner 
mastered  the  system  as  a  mathematical  scheme  than 
we  promptly  made  arrangements  for  beginning  the 
work  in  earnest.  We  all  thought  it  desirable  that, 
until  it  was  crowned  with  success,  our  enterprise 
should  remain  unknown  to  anybody  except  our- 
selves. It  was  therefore  settled  that  our  journey 
should  take  place  at  once — that  is  to  say,  about  the 
end  of  October,  at  which  time  Monte  Carlo  would 
be  nearly  empty,  and  we  should  run  least  risk  of 
encountering  loquacious  acquaintances  or  of  having 
our  secret  stolen  from  us  by  inquisitive  and  sinister- 
rivals.  We  accordingly  secured  in  advance — since 
all  the  great  hotels  at  the  time  in  question  were 
closed — a  suite  of  four  bedrooms  and  a  sitting 
room  at  a  small  establishment  called  the  H6tel 
de  Russie.  Its  appointments,  when  we  arrived, 

14  197 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

proved  to  be  so  simple  that  the  floor  of  the  res- 
taurant was  sanded;  but  the  rooms  upstairs  were 
comfortable;  and  not  even  at  the  H6tel  de  Paris 
could  anything  better  have  been  found  in  the  way 
of  wine  01  cooking. 

Accordingly  on  a  certain  night  we,  the  four  pre- 
cursors, were  duly  assembled  on  the  platform  of 
Victoria  Station;  and  Beckett,  with  the  air  of  a 
conspirator,  appeared  at  the  last  moment,  thrust 
into  our  keeping  certain  notes  of  credit,  and  gave 
us  his  blessing  as  we  seated  ourselves  in  the  con- 
tinental train.  Had  we  been  agents  of  a  plot  or- 
ganized to  convulse  Europe  we  could  not  have  been 
in  a  condition  of  greater  and  more  carefully  sub- 
dued excitement,  though  there  was  not  absent  from 
any  of  us  an  underlying  sense  of  comedy.  In  the 
dead  of  night  we  were  having  supper  at  Calais,  and, 
scanning  the  few  other  travelers  who  were  engaged 
in  the  same  task,  we  were  rejoicing  in  a  sense  of 
having  escaped  all  curious  observation,  when  Jern- 
ingham  gripped  my  arm  and  said:  "Did  you  see  the 
man  who  has  just  gone  through  the  door?  Wasn't 

he  your  friend  W ?"    He  had  named  one  of  the 

most  intimate  of  the  Catholic  connections  of  my 
family,  who  was,  moreover,  the  greatest  gossip  in 
Europe.  Never  would  a  dear  friend  have  to  us  been 
less  welcome  than  he.  Happily,  however,  I  was  able 
to  assure  Jerningham  that  his  fears  were  groundless, 
and  we  settled  ourselves  in  peace  among  the  cushions 
of  the  Paris  train  without  having  seen  a  soul  who  was 

198 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

otherwise  than  a  stranger  to  all  of  us.  Having 
reached  the  Gare  du  Nord  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  we  scrutinized  the  faces  at  the  exit  with 
the  same  gratifying  result. 

Thus  freed  from  anxiety,  we  enjoyed  at  the  H6tel 
Continental  a  prolonged  sleep,  which  was  haunted 
by  pleasing  dreams.  By  eight  o'clock  that  evening 
we  found  ourselves  at  the  Gare  de  Lyon,  disposing 
our  belongings  in  a  compartment  of  the  wagon-lit 
which  ended  its  course  at  Ventimiglia.  My  own 
arrangements  having  been  made,  I  was  smoking  a 
cigarette  in  the  corridor  when  a  well-known  voice 
over  my  shoulder  was  ejaculating  my  Christian  name. 
I  turned  round,  and  there  was  the  very  friend  whom 
Jerningham  had  identified  but  too  correctly  at 
Calais.  I  took  the  bull  by  the  horns.  I  greeted  him 
with  the  utmost  enthusiasm;  and  when  he  asked 
me  what  I  was  doing  I  told  him  that  I  and  three 
companions  were  going  to  amuse  ourselves  in  the 
south  of  France  till  Christmas,  and  should — such, 
I  think,  was  my  phrase — have  "a  look  in"  at  Monte 
Carlo  as  one  incident  of  our  program.  I  begged 
him  to  come  and  be  introduced  to  my  friends,  as 
soon  as  our  compartment  was  in  order,  and  I  man- 
aged meanwhile  to  inform  them  as  to  what  had 
happened.  In  due  time  he  visited  us.  He  was  full 
of  good  spirits  and  conversation,  and  one  of  the  first 
facts  that  he  communicated  to  us  was  that  he  was 
on  his  way  to  Monte  Carlo  himself,  to  play  an  in- 
fallible system.  With  sublime  presence  of  mind  we 

199 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

expressed  a  hope  that  we  might  meet  there,  adding 
that,  if  we  did,  he  might  find  that  the  place  had 
seduced  us  into  trying  a  little  system  likewise.  He 
was,  however,  so  much  taken  up  with  his  own  that 
he  had  no  time  or  inclination  to  propound  any  ques- 
tions as  to  ours;  and  when  he  got  out  at  Nice  he 
never  suspected  that,  so  far  as  play  was  concerned, 
we  were  more  than  casual  triflers. 

When  we  reached  Monte  Carlo  it  was  dark.  The 
only  vehicle  in  waiting  was  the  omnibus  of  the  H6tel 
de  Russie;  and  into  its  well  of  blackness  one  other 
passenger  followed  us.  Four  hearts  were  at  once 
set  beating  by  the  thought  that  this  man  might  be 
a  spy,  who  had  already  heard  of  our  enterprise,  and 
whose  mission  was  to  appropriate  or  else  to  thwart 
our  secret.  The  following  day  two  of  us  drove  into 
Nice  and  deposited  our  notes  of  credit  at  one  of  the 
most  important  banks,  the  manager  looking  at  us 
with  an  oddly  repressed  smile,  as  though  he  detected 
in  us  a  new  contingent  of  dupes.  We  went  back  to 
Monte  Carlo  armed  with  two  small  steel  safes,  one 
for  such  capital  as  was  needed  for  our  immediate 
purposes,  the  other  for  our  prospective  winnings. 
Jerningham,  who  had  a  curious  talent  for  initiating 
intimacies  everywhere,  had  meanwhile  managed  to 
ascertain  from  somebody  that,  if  we  desired  to  secure 
preferential  civility  from  the  croupiers,  the  right 
thing  to  do  was  to  make  each  of  them  a  present  of 
fairly  good  cigars,  gifts  of  money  being  naturally 
not  allowed.  This  was  done,  and  ultimately  we  began 

8PO 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

our  play  feeling  as  children  do  when  they  first  put 
their  feet  into  sea  water. 

We  played  in  couples,  one  player  calculating  the 
stakes,  the  other  placing  them  on  the  table.  The 
couples  were  to  play  alternately,  one  giving  place  to 
another  as  soon  as  the  winnings  amounted  to  fifty 
pounds.  When  the  total  winnings  of  both  reached 
a  hundred  pounds  we  stopped.  We  played  it  for 
that  day  no  longer. 

For  three  weeks  the  whole  thing  went  like  clock- 
work. We  ground  out  our  daily  gains — a  hundred 
pounds  on  an  average — as  though  they  were  coffee 
from  a  coffee  mill.  But  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
week  the  fates  were  for  the  first  time  against  us. 
We  lost  in  the  course  of  a  morning  about  half  the 
sum  which  it  had  cost  us  the  labor  of  three  weeks 
to  win.  We  were  not,  however,  daunted.  We  re- 
solved that  for  the  future  no  couple  of  players  should 
bring  into  the  rooms  more  than  five  hundred  pounds, 
and  should  this  sum  be  lost  we  would  suspend  our 
proceedings  for  the  day  and  start  afresh  next  morn- 
ing. This  arrangement  being  made,  our  successes 
began  again.  A  risked  capital  of  five  hundred  pounds 
regularly  yielded  a  return  of  10  per  cent,  in  not 
much  more  than  an  hour,  and  we  had  nearly  re- 
covered the  whole  of  our  previous  loss  when  a 
catastrophe  occurred  crwing  to  causes  which  had  not 
come  into  our  calculations.  One  of  our  couples, 
not  finding  that  they  were  winning  as  fast  as  they 
had  hoped  to  do,  completely  lost  their  heads,  and 

2OI 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

began  throwing  money  on  the  tables  without  any 
system  at  all.  The  result  was  that  in  less  than  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  every  penny  which  they  had 
brought  with  them  had  disappeared.  Beckett,  as 
the  only  person  who  could  possibly  lose  through  the 
enterprise,  was  promptly  consulted  by  telegram. 
His  answer  was  that  he  was  coming  out  himself  in 
a  month  or  so,  and  begged  us  to  stay  where  we  were, 
but  to  suspend  our  play  till  the  situation  could  be 
discussed  more  fully.  By  this  prudent  decision  on 
his  part  I  was  not  myself  displeased;  for  system- 
playing,  even  when  successful,  I  discovered  to  be  a 
very  tedious  matter. 

Meanwhile,  in  respect  of  amusements,  we  four  were 
by  no  means  derelicts.  Empty  as  Monte  Carlo  was, 
some  villas  were  already  occupied,  one  of  these  being 
Le  Nid,  of  which  Laura,  Lady  Wilton  was  the  mis- 
tress— a  woman  whose  hospitalities  were  no  less 
agreeable  than  herself.  Having  found  out  enough 
about  us  to  show  her  that  we  were  at  least  present- 
able, she  inaugurated  an  acquaintance  with  us  by 
sending  a  little  box  to  myself,  which  proved  to 
contain,  on  being  opened,  something  in  the  nature 
of  a  valentine.  It  contained  a  spray  of  mimosa 
packed -in  cotton  wool,  and  lying  like  an  elf  among 
the  petals  was  a  little  sleeping  bat.  Lady  Wilton 
a  week  before  had  appeared  as  the  Evening  Star  at 
a  fancy  ball  at  Nice.  In  return  for  her  valentine  I 
bought  a  microscopic  puppy,  which,  packed  in  cotton 
wool  and  inclosed  in  a  box  as  the  bat  was,  was  trans- 

202 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

mitted  to  her  by  a  florist  with  a  card  attached  to  its 
person,  and  bearing  the  words,  "From  the  bat  to 
the  Evening  Star."  Among  other  friends  whom  I 
discovered  at  Monte  Carlo,  I  may  mention  a  certain 
family  whom  I  had  once  known  well  at  Homburg, 
but  had  never  seen  again  till  now — a  father,  a  mother, 
and  an  eminently  beautiful  daughter.  Their  home 
at  Monte  Carlo  was  a  villa,  small,  but  so  curtained 
with  velvet  that  it  looked  like  a  French  jewel  box. 
It  was  smothered  in  Banksia  roses,  and  it  overlooked 
the  sea.  By  one  of  its  windows  the  daughter  would 
play  the  harp. 

At  length  Beckett  arrived,  bringing  his  wife  with 
him.  Apart  from  the  matter  of  the  system,  their 
coming  effected  a  change  which  to  me  was  extremely 
grateful.  The  Becketts  and  I  before  long  migrated 
from  Monte  Carlo,  and  took  a  villa  between  us  for 
a  couple  of  months  at  Beaulieu.  As  for  the  system, 
Beckett,  who  was  by  no  means  disheartened,  played 
it  himself  for  many  nights  in  succession,  and  ulti- 
mately admitted  that  there  were  defects  in  it  which 
its  late  breakdown  had  revealed  rather  than  caused. 
Not  long  afterward  he  was  persuaded  into  adopting 
another,  commended  to  him  by  Butler  Johnson,  once 
a  prominent  Member  of  Parliament.  This  system, 
mechanical  rather  than  mathematical,  was  based 
on  the  assumption  that  the  roulettes  used  at  Monte 
Carlo  were  in  all  probability  not  accurate  imple- 
ments— that  the  bearings,  unless  constantly  recti- 
fied, would  soon  be  so  worn  with  use  that  the  wheel 

203 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

during  a  long  enough  period  would  bring  out  certain 
numbers  in  more  than  their  due  proportion.  Hence, 
anyone  backing  these — so  the  argument  ran — was 
necessarily  bound  in  the  long  run  to  win.  This  con- 
clusion, reached  by  a  feat  of  a  priori  reasoning,  was 
due  to  the  ingenuity  of  an  English  engineer  called 
Jaggers,  and  it  was  verified  by  the  fact  that  a  system 
having  this  mechanical  basis  was  ultimately,  with 
astounding  success,  played  by  a  syndicate  of  persons 
who,  before  the  officials  of  the  Casino  managed  to 
detect  its  nature,  had  won  no  less  than  eighty 
thousand  pounds  between  them.  The  secret,  how- 
ever, was  found  out  at  last.  Before  the  players  were 
aware  of  it,  the  construction  of  the  roulettes  was 
amended.  Each  was  built  up  of  a  number  of  inter- 
changeable parts,  the  construction  of  no  wheel  being 
for  any  two  days  the  same.  The  spell  was  broken; 
the  players  began  to  lose.  One  or  two  of  them, 
suspecting  what  had  actually  happened,  withdrew 
from  the  enterprise  and  carried  off  their  gains  along 
with  them.  Less  prudent  and  more  sanguine,  the 
rest  persisted  till  all  that  they  had  gained  was  gone. 
An  Italian  professor  of  mathematics,  however,  de- 
clared that,  despite  the  officials,  he  had  discovered 
how  this  system  might  be  revived  in  a  new  and  more 
delicate  form;  and  Beckett,  with  renewed  hopes, 
was  induced  to  finance  for  a  time  the  second  experi- 
ment out  of  some  of  the  capital  which  he  had  got 
together  for  his  first.  The  money,  however,  melted 
away  as  though  by  a  slow  hemorrhage;  before  very 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

long  he  refused  to  produce  more,  and  the  history  of 
both  systems  thus  came  to  an  end. 

But  the  pleasantness  of  our  life  at  Beaulieu  was 
sufficient  to  counterbalance  the  disappointments  in- 
flicted on  us  by  Fortune  at  the  gaming  tables.  Our 
fantastic  villa  was  embowered  in  flowers  and  foliage. 
Buginvillaeas  made  a  purple  flame  on  the  walls. 
An  avenue  of  palms  led  down  from  the  house  to  the 
flashings  of  a  minute  harbor,  on  which  fishing  boats 
rocked  their  gayly  painted  prows,  while  woods  of 
olive  made  a  mystery  of  the  impending  hills  behind. 
Friends  and  acquaintances  from  Cannes  often  came 
to  lunch  with  us,  Alfred  Montgomery  and  the 
Duchess  of  Montrose  among  them.  Beckett's  spirits 
rose.  Singularly  sensitive  as  he  always  was  to  poetry, 
I  could  hear  him  (for  the  walls  which  divided  our 
rooms  were  thin)  reciting  passages  from  "Paradise 
Lost"  in  his  tub.  Though  he  had  done  with  systems, 
he,  his  wife,  and  I  frequently  went  to  Monte  Carlo 
for  dinner,  our  inducements  being  mainly  the  chance 
of  meeting  friends  whose  scrutiny  we  no  longer 
feared,  and  the  beauty  of  the  homeward  drive  by 
the  Lower  Corniche  road.  The  Prince's  palace, 
pale  on  its  rocky  promontory,  seemed  like  some  work 
of  enchantment  as  we  swept  by  in  the  moonlight, 
and  our  horses  carried  us  into  strange,  fantastic 
solitudes,  with  mountainous  woods  on  one  side  and 
the  waves  just  below  us  on  the  other.  In  stillnesses 
broken  only  by  the  noise  of  our  own  transit,  the 
murmur  of  the  waves  was  merely  a  stillness  audible, 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

as  they  whispered  along  crescents  of  sand  with  a 
sound  like  a  sleeping  kiss. 

The  Becketts,  however,  had  to  go  back  to  England 
some  weeks  sooner  than  they  expected,  and  I  was 
left  till  the  expiration  of  our  lease,  to  occupy  the 
villa  alone.  It  was  during  the  weeks  for  which  I  was 
thus  left  to  myself  that  a  letter  reached  me  from 
St.  Andrews,  announcing  that  if  I  wished  to  retire 
I  was  honorably  free  to  do  so,  as  a  suitable  substitute 
had  been  found.  The  news  was  extremely  welcome 
to  me.  I  had  many  books  with  me  at  Beaulieu,  for 
the  most  part  dealing  with  economic  and  social 
science;  and  once  more,  when  I  was  left  to  myself, 
the  study  of  these  absorbed  me,  and  led  me  to  begin 
the  planning  of  a  kind  of  political  novel,  of  which 
I  shall  speak  presently.  But  my  solitude  was  not 
enlivened  by  political  speculation  only.  Two  or 
three  times  a  week  I  went  to  Monte  Carlo  to  enjoy 
the  society  of  the  R — • — s  in  their  villa,  which  I  have 
already  described,  and  which  still  remains  in  my 
memory  as  associated  with  flowers  and  harp  strings. 

Out  of  my  intimacy  with  the  R s  an  incident 

arose  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  fitting  conclusion 
to  the  drama  of  Monte  Carlo,  so  far  as  I  myself  was 
concerned  with  it.  The  R — — s  had  a  friend,  Mrs. 

P ,    a   not   very   prosperous   widow,    who   was 

spending  the  winter  and  spring  with  them.  She  was 
far  from  beautiful,  and  her  manners  perhaps  were 
deficient  in  polish,  but  her  temper  was  singularly 
sweet.  She  was  willing  to  oblige  everybody.  She 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

accompanied  Miss  R and  myself  on  many  in- 
teresting expeditions,  and  was  pleased  by  our  seek- 
ing her  companionship.  Otherwise  she  was  much 
alone,  and  was  left  to  amuse  herself;  her  only 
amusement — so  I  gathered  from  her  chance  con- 
versation— being  the  winning  or  losing  of  a  five- 
franc  piece  at  the  tables.  One  day,  when  I  called 
at  the  villa,  I  saw  by  the  butler's  face  that  some- 
thing unusual  must  have  happened.  I  learned  a 

few  minutes  later  that  Mrs.  P was  dead.    The 

cause  of  her  death  turned  out  to  have  been  this. 
Having  begun  her  exploits  at  the  gambling  rooms 
with  winning  or  losing  a  five-franc  piece  occasionally, 
she  had,  unsuspected  by  anybody,  succumbed  by 
slow  degrees  to  the  true  gambler's  passion.  In 
order  to  gratify  this,  everything  she  could  sell — and 
it  was  not  much — she  had  sold.  Not  many  hours 
ago  she  had  placed  her  last  louis  on  the  table,  and 
had  seen  it  disappear  under  the  traction  of  the 
croupier's  rake.  She  had  nothing  left  in  her  bed- 
room but  the  clothes  which  she  had  worn  yesterday, 
a  hairbrush,  and  a  bottle  of  laudanum.  The  bottle 
that  morning  had  been  found  in  her  hand,  empty. 
The  last  incident  of  my  visit  to  Monte  Carlo  was 
her  burial.  In  the  mists  of  a  rainy  morning  a  sur- 
pliced  English  clergyman  saw  her  put  out  of  sight 
and  mind  in  a  little  obscure  cemetery.  There  were 

only  two  mourners.    I  myself  was  one ;  Miss  R , 

with  her  fair  hair  and  her  black  dress,  was  the  other. 
A  few  days  later  I  left  Beaulieu  for  England  by 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

way  of  the  Italian  lakes.  I  had  managed  to  hire 
at  Nice  a  great  old-fashioned  traveling  carriage — • 
a  relic  of  pre-railway  days.  By  way  of  a  parting 

dissipation  I  picked  up  the  R s  at  their  villa, 

and  took  them  with  me  as  far  as  San  Remo.  There 
I  joined  the  train,  the  R — — s  going  back  in  the 
carriage.  Next  morning  I  was  at  Cadennabia,  and 
Monte  Carlo  and  the  system,  and  Beaulieu  and  its 
Buginvillagas,  were  behind  me. 


CHAPTER  XI 
"THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGES" 

Intellectual  Apathy  of  Conservatives — A  Novel  Which  Attempts 
to  Harmonize  Socialist  Principles  with  Conservative 

IN  spite  of  the  severance  of  my  connection  with 
the  St.  Andrews  Boroughs,  I  found,  when  I 
returned  to  England  from  Monte  Carlo,  that 
my  active  connection  with  politics  was  not  by  any 
means  at  an  end.  Politics,  as  a  mere  fight  over 
details,  or  as  a  battle  between  rival  politicians,  ap- 
pealed to  me  no  more  than  it  had  done  during  my 
experience  of  electioneering  in  Fifeshire;  but  pres- 
ently by  family  events  I  was  drawn  once  more  into 
the  fray.  My  cousin,  Richard  Mallock  of  Cocking- 
ton,  had  been  asked,  and  had  consented,  to  stand  as 
Conservative  candidate  for  the  Torquay  division  of 
Devonshire.  His  local  popularity,  which  was  great, 
depended  mainly  on  the  engaging  and  somewhat  shy 
simplicity  of  his  manner,  on  his  honesty,  which  was 
recognized  by  all,  and  on  his  generosity  and  sound 
sense  as  a  landlord. '  These  latter  qualities  had  lately 
been  made  conspicuous  by  his  administration  of 
those  parts  of  his  property  which  were  now,  one  after 
another,  being  quickly  covered  with  buildings.  He 
was  no  student,  however,  of  statistics  or  political 
theory;  as  a  speaker  his  practice  had  been  small, 

309 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

and  he  and  his  advisers  asked  me  to  give  what 
assistance  I  could. 

One  night  early  in  July  I  had,  at  a  large  ball  in 
London,  spent  a  most  agreeable  hour  with  a  com- 
panion who  was,  like  myself,  no  dancer,  in  watching 
and  discussing  with  her  the  brilliantly  lighted  com- 
pany. At  last,  catching  sight  of  a  clock,  I  found 
myself  obliged  to  go.  "I  have,"  I  said,  "to  be  at 
Paddington  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  To- 
morrow I  must  speak  in  Devonshire  to  a  meeting 
of  agricultural  laborers."  She  expressed  approval 
and  sympathy,  and  I  presently  found  myself  in  the 
dimness  of  the  still  streets,  happy  in  the  thought 
that  soon  I  should  be  among  the  smell  of  meadows 
and  listening  to  the  noise  of  rooks.  The  following 
evening  at  a  village  on  Richard  Mallock's  property, 
his  political  campaign  was  to  be  inaugurated,  and  I 
was  to  be  one  of  the  orators. 

When  the  time  for  the  meeting  came  I  found  my- 
self erect  in  a  wagon,  with  a  world  of  apple  trees  in 
front  of  me  and  a  thatched  barn  behind,  and  heard 
myself  discussing  the  program  of  "three  acres  and 
a  cow,"  of  which  my  listeners  understood  nothing, 
and  I  not  more  than  a  little.  Compared  with  such 
an  audience  the  Liberals  of  St.  Andrews  were  sages. 
The  most  intelligent  of  the  Conservative  audiences 
in  the  constituency  were  those  got  together  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Primrose  League.  But  Conserv- 
atism even  with  them  was  no  more  than  a  vague 
sentiment,  healthy  so  far  as  it  went,  but  incapable 

210 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  aiding  them  in  controversy  with  any  glib  Radical 
opponent.  I  tried  again  and  again  during  the  fol- 
lowing few  weeks  to  call  their  attention  to  the  sources 
from  which  our  national  wealth  generally,  and  most 
of  their  own  food,  was  derived,  and  particularly  to 
the  economic  significance  of  a  town  such  as  Torquay, 
much  of  the  wealth  of  which  had  its  origin  in  foreign 
countries.  In  dealing,  however,  with  these  matters, 
I  met  with  no  response  more  encouraging  than  puz- 
zled smiles;  but  whenever,  for  want  of  something 
better  to  say,  I  alluded  to  "this  great  Empire  on 
which  the  sun  never  sets,"  I  was  greeted  with  a 
volume  of  cheers  sufficient,  one  might  almost  have 
thought,  to  have  secured  the  election  of  a  Conserva- 
tive candidate  on  the  spot.  Besides  myself,  two 
other  workers  were  active,  who  began  their  political 
life  as  Richard  Mallock's  supporters  at  Torquay, 
and  who  subsequently  rose  to  eminence  of  a  wider 
kind — George  Lane  Fox,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Prim- 
rose League,  and  J.  Sandars  as  secretary  and  adviser 
to  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour.  But  they,  so  it  seemed  to 
me,  found  it  no  easier  than  I  did  to  vitalize  the  non- 
Radical  or  temperamentally  i  Conservative  classes 
with  any  definite  knowledge  of  the  main  conditions 
and  forces  on  which  their  own  livelihood  depended, 
and  which  Radicals  and  revolutionaries  would 
destroy.  Of  this  state  of  mind  I  remember  an 
amusing  illustration. 

Many  Primrose  League  meetings,  at  the  time  of 
which  I  now  speak  and  later,  were  held  at  Cockington 

N  211 


MEMOIRS   OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Court,  which  was  now  a  political  center  for  the  first 
time  since  the  days  of  William  and  Mary.  The  pro- 
ceedings on  one  occasion  were  to  begin  with  a  few 
preliminary  speeches,  delivered  from  some  steps  in 
a  garden  which  adjoined  the  house.  The  chair  was 
to  be  taken  by  the  Duchess  (Annie)  of  Sutherland, 
who  for  many  years  spent  part  of  the  summer  at 
Torquay.  Her  opening  speech  consisted  of  five 
words:  "I  declare  this  meeting  open."  Subse- 
quently George  Lane  Fox  moved  a  vote  of  thanks  to 
the  duchess  "for  the  very  able  way  in  which  she 
had  taken  the  chair."  Never  did  appropriate 
brevity  receive  a  more  deserved  tribute.  These 
preliminaries  having  been  accomplished,  the  business 
of  the  day  began.  The  slopes  surrounding  the  house 
were  dotted  with  various  platforms,  from  each  of 
which  addresses  were  delivered  to  all  who  cared  to 
listen.  The  audience  which  clustered  round  one  of 
them  was  soon  of  such  exceptional  size  that  I  joined 
it  in  the  hope  of  discovering  to  what  this  fact  was 
due.  The  platform  was  occupied  by  two  county 
members,  both  men  of  worth  and  weight,  but  not 
even  the  highest  talents  which  their  warmest  friends 
could  attribute  to  them  would  account,  so  it  seemed 
to  me,  for  the  outbursts  of  uproarious  applause  which 
greeted  from  time  to  time  the  one  who  was  now 
speaking.  In  the  applauded  passages  I  failed  to 
d/stect  anything  more  cogent  or  pungent  than  the 
general  substance  of  those  which  were  passed  by  in 
silence.  I  could  find  no  explanation  of  this  per- 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

plexing  fact  till  I  realized  that  behind  the  platform 
was  a  tall,  greased  pole,  up  which  successive  com- 
petitors were  doing  their  best  to  climb,  the  victor's 
reward  being  a  large  leg  of  mutton  at  the  top  of  it, 
and  the  applause  being  excited  by  the  feats,  not  of 
the  orator,  but  of  the  acrobats. 

The  word  "acrobats,"  indeed,  represents  not  in- 
aptly the  character  which  I  had  from  the  first 
imputed  to  the  extreme  reformers  (whether  Radicals 
or  Socialists)  as  a  whole.  These  extremists  were,  in 
my  opinion,  at  once  wrong  and  popular,  not  because 
they  actually  invented  either  the  facts  or  principles 
proclaimed  by  them,  but  because  they  practiced  the 
art  of  contorting  facts  into  any  shape  they  pleased, 
no  matter  what,  so  long  as  this  amounted  to  a  grimace 
which  was  calculated  to  attract  attention,  and  which, 
in  the  absence  of  any  opponents  who  could  counter 
them  by  detailed  exposure,  could,  by  constant  repe- 
tition, be  invested  with  the  prestige  of  truth.  And 
why  was  exposure  of  the  requisite  kind  wanting? 
Simply  because  the  Conservatives  as  a  whole  were 
so  ignorant  that  they  did  not  know,  or  so  timorous 
or  apathetic  that  they  did  not  dare  to  use,  the  true 
facts,  figures,  or  principles  by  the  promulgation  of 
which  alone  the  false  might  be  systematically  dis- 
credited. The  need  of  a  scientific  Conservatism 
equipped  with  these  weapons  of  precision  was  not  so 
urgent  at  that  time  as  it  has  since  then  become. 
But  I  felt  it  even  then.  I  foresaw  how  rapidly  this 
need  was  bound  to  be  aggravated.  It  had  haunted 
15  213 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

me  even  at  Beaulieu,  when  I  wandered  among  the 
sleeping  flowers  by  the  light  of  Mediterranean  moons. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  formulating  a  true 
scientific  Conservatism,  which  the  masses  shall  be 
able  to  comprehend,  I  am  the  last  person  to  ignore. 
There  is  the  difficulty  of  formulating  true  general 
principles.  There  is  the  difficulty  of  collecting  and 
verifying  the  statistical  and  historical  facts,  to 
which  general  principles  must  be  accommodated. 
There  is  the  difficulty  of  bringing  moral  and  social 
sentiments  into  harmony  with  objective  conditions 
which  no  sentiment  can  permanently  alter.  There  is 
the  difficulty  of  transforming  many  analyses  of  facts 
of  different  kinds  into  a  synthesis  moral  and  rational, 
by  the  light  of  which  human  beings  can  live;  and, 
feeling  my  way  slowly,  I  now  attempted  to  indicate 
what  the  nature  of  such  a  synthesis  would  be.  In  so 
doing  I  felt  that  political  problems  of  life  reunited 
themselves  with  those  which  are  commonly  called 
religious,  and  with  which,  during  my  earlier  years, 
my  mind  had  been  alone  engaged. 

This  attempt  at  a  synthesis  was  embodied  ulti- 
mately in  the  form  of  another  novel,  which  I  have 
mentioned  already,  and  to  which  I  gave  the  name  of 
The  Old  Order  Changes.  The  scene  of  this  story,  like 
that  of  A  Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  was, 
for  the  most  part,  the  Riviera,  and  the  story  itself 
was  to  a  very  great  extent  the  product  of  many 
solitary  hours  at  Beaulieu,  during  which  Monte 
Carlo  and  the  system  became  no  more  than  a  dream. 

214 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  Old  Order  Changes,  moreover,  resembles  its 
predecessor  in  this — that  the  love  interest  centers 
in  a  woman  considered  in  relation  to  her  higher 
beliefs  and  principles;  but  whereas  in  A  Romance 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century  such  higher  beliefs  and 
principles  are  those  connected  with  the  mysticism 
of  personal  virtue,  they  are  connected  in  The  Old 
Order  Changes  with  a  sense  of  social  duty,  as  ex- 
perienced by  a  well-born  Catholic,  to  the  mass  of 
the  common  people  in  respect  of  their  material 
circumstances. 

The  heroine,  who  had  come  across  the  writings  of 
modern  agitators,  in  which  the  masses  are  depicted 
as  brutalized  by  an  almost  universal  poverty,  most 
of  the  fruits  of  their  industry  being  stolen  from 
them  by  the  rapacious  rich,  becomes  gradually  pos- 
sessed by  the  conviction  that  this  picture,  even  if 
exaggerated,  is  in  the  main  true.  Such  being  the 
case,  another  conviction  dawns  on  her,  which 
troubles  her  nature  to  its  depth — namely,  that  the 
Catholic  Church — her  own  religion  by  inheritance — 
will  for  her  have  lost  all  meaning  unless  it  absorbs 
into  the  body  of  virtues  enjoined  by  its  doctrines 
on  the  rich  a  corporate  sense  of  their  overwhelming 
obligations  to  the  poor. 

She  lays  bare  the  state  of  her  mind  to  a  highly 
connected  and  highly  intellectual  priest,  Father 
Stanley  (who  figures  in  A  Romance  of  the* Nineteenth 
Century  also),  and  asks  him  if  he  thinks  her  wicked. 
The  priest's  answer  is  No.  "The  Church,"  he  says, 

215 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

"is  always  extending  the  sphere  of  duty  as  from  age 
to  age  needs  and  conditions  change.  Political 
economy,  as  related  to  the  conditions  of  labor,  has 
indeed  in  our  day  become  a  part  of  theology — its 
youngest  branch;  and  as  such,  I,  a  priest,  have 
studied  it.  Every  age  has  its  riddle,  and  this  riddle 
is  ours." 

He  then  goes  on  to  explain  to  her  that  the  relation 
of  the  rich  to  the  masses  is  not  so  simple  as  she 
thinks  it.  The  poverty  which  agitators  ascribe  to 
all  mankind,  except  a  small  body  of  plutocrats,  is, 
he  says,  neither  so  deep  nor  so  universal  as  these 
persons  represent  it;  and,  though  in  part  it  may 
arise  from  a  robbery  of  the  many  by  a  rapacious 
few,  this  is  not  the  whole  of  the  story.  He  points 
out  that  if  a  hundred  years  ago  the  whole  wealth  of 
this -country  had  been  divided  equally  among  all,  the 
masses  would,  as  a  whole,  be  poorer  than  they  are 
now ;  and  that  most  of  the  wealth  which  is  monopo- 
lized 'now  by  the  few  consists  not  of  abstractions 
which  they  perpetrate  from  a  common  stock,  but  of 
additions  to  it  which  they  have  made  themselves  by 
their  own  talents  and  enterprise.  It  is  true,  he  pro- 
ceeds, that  if,  having  made  these  additions,  the  few 
gave  them  away  instead  of  retaining  them  for  them- 
selves, as  the  principles  of  Socialism  would  demand, 
the  wealth  of  the  many  would  be  so  far  increased 
for  the  moment;  but  here  comes  the  practical  ques- 
tion. If,  of  these  additions,  the  few  were  to  retain 
nothing — if  exceptional  talent  secured  HO  proper- 

216 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tionate  reward — would  these  additions,  a  part  of 
which  goes  to  the  mass  already,  continue  to  be  made 
by  anybody?  This  might  be  so  if  the  great  leaders 
of  industry  had  all  of  them  the  temperament  of 
monks,  whose  one  passion  was  not  to  get,  but  to 
give;  but  to  suppose  this  possible  would  be  merely 
to  dream  a  dream.  "It  would  be  easier,"  he  says, 
in  conclusion,  "far  easier,  to  make  men  Trappists 
than  it  would  be  to  make  them  Socialists." 

Animated  by  this  last  argument,  the  heroine  is 
led  to  dream  a  dream  of  her  own.  Let  it  be  granted, 
she  says  to  herself,  that  the  leaders  of  modern  indus- 
try capable  of  accepting  the  Socialist  gospel  are  few, 
and  will  always  remain  few.  Still  there  may  be 
some  exceptions ;  and  it  may  not  be  unreasonable  to 
expect  that,  under  the  influence  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  certain  great  factories  might  be  assimi- 
lated to  Trappist  or  Franciscan  monasteries,  the 
profits  of  which  the  monks  would  consecrate  to 
social  purposes,  voluntarily  living  the  lives  of  the 
poorest  of  the  poor  themselves.  Here,  she  argues, 
we  should  have  examples,  at  all  events,  by  which 
all  might  be  moved,  though  all  were  not  fit  to 
follow  them. 

This  outburst  of  a  girl's  idealism  is  considered  by 
the  priest  with  a  sympathetic,  yet  at  the  same  time 
a  cautious,  interest.  When,  turning  from  the  priest, 
she  opens  her  mind  to  the  hero,  he  regards  some  of 
her  ideas  as  exaggerated ;  but  the  affection  which  he 
feels  for  her  as  a  lover  makes  their  appeal  deeper. 

217 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

In  A  Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  hero's 
love  for  the  heroine  resembles  the  affection  of  St. 
Augustine  for  Monica — a  love  whose  consummation 
is  contingent  on  a  mystical  union  of  both  with  "the 
Selfsame,  the  everlasting  One."  In  The  Old  Order 
Changes  the  passion  is  contingent  on  a  partnership 
with  her  in  some  scheme  of  idealized  political 
action  for  the  social  benefit  of  the  masses.  But  cir- 
cumstances soon  arise  by  which  the  two  are  es- 
tranged. A  mischief-maker,  quite  untruly,  informs 
the  heroine's  aunts,  who  are  her  guardians — Catho- 
lics of  the  strictest  type — that  the  hero  is  still  carry- 
ing on  an  old  intrigue  with  a  beautiful  French- 
woman, now  living  at  Nice.  This  gossip  is  passed 
on  to  the  girl.  The  aunts  forbid  the  hero  to  have 
any  more,  communication  with  her;  and  the  girl 
herself  writes  him  a  cold  letter  which  is  tantamount 
to  an  abrupt  dismissal. 

The  aunts  and  the  niece  leave  him  to  find  out  the 
reason  for  himself,  which,  since  it  is  quite  fictitious, 
he  is  unable  to  do.  Having  received  their  letters, 
and  smarting  under  a  sense  of  wrong,  he  starts  for 
a  walk  among  the  mountains  on  the  slopes  of  which 
his  house,  an  old  chateau,  is  situated.  He  sprains 
his  ankle,  and  some  strangers  bring  him  home  in  a 
carriage.  These  strangers  consist  of  an  American 
general,  who  is  a  Southerner,  his  attractive  wife, 
and  a  singularly  beautiful  daughter.  Solitude  being 
for  him  intolerable,  he  begs  them  to  become  his 
guests.  A  few  days  later  they  arrive,  and  round 

218 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

him,  like  a  naive  Circe,  the  beautiful  daughter  un- 
designedly  weaves  her  spell.  ' '  Under  her  influence, ' ' 
as  the  words  of  the  novel  describe  it,  "the  voices  of 
men  asking  for  spiritual  guidance,  the  growth  of  a 
democracy  uneasily  chafing  for  change,  dwindled  in 
his  ears  till  at  last  they  were  hardly  audible."  This 
act  of  the  drama  is,  however,  abruptly  interrupted 
by  family  business,  which  recalls  the  hero  to  Eng- 
land. Meanwhile  the  Catholic  heroine  and  her 
aunts  learn  that  he  was  wholly  guiltless  of  the  in- 
trigue at  Nice  imputed  to  him,  and  a  kindly  mediator 
discreetly  gives  him  to  understand  that  if  in  a  week 
or  two  he  would  meet  them  at  the  Italian  lakes,  all 
would  be  forgotten  and  forgiven,  if  indeed  there  were 
anything  to  forgive.  It  happens  that  an  Italian 
cousin  of  his  has  put  at  his  disposal  a  villa  in  the 
middle  of  Lago  Maggiore;  and  there  his  reunion 
with  the  heroine  and  her  Catholic  kindred  is  accom- 
plished. Other  friends,  who  are  staying  at  Baveno, 
join  the  group,  Father  Stanley  among  them.  In  the 
chapel  of  the  villa  he,  by  way  of  a  sermon,  gives 
them  a  sort  of  address  on  the  social  problems  of  the 
time;  and  this  throughout  has  reference  to  the  sort  of 
ideas  or  projects  of  which  the  heroine  had  already 
spoken  to  him. 

He  takes  for  his  text  the  following  words  from  St. 
James:  "Go  to  now,  ye  rich  men,  weep  and  howl  for 
your  miseries  that  shall  come  upon  you.  Behold,  the 
hire  of  the  laborers,  which  is  of  you  kept  back  by 

fraud,   crieth.     If  a  brother  or  sister  be  destitute, 

219 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

and  if  any  of  you  say  to  them,  'Depart  in  peace'; 
notwithstanding  ye  give  not  them  those  things 
needful  for  the  body,  what  doth  it  profit?  To  him 
that  knoweth  to  do  good  and  doeth  it  not,  to  him  it 
is  sin."  The  priest  then  proceeds  to  the  question 
of  what  virtue  and  duty  are.  "To  this,"  he  says, 
"  there  are  two  answers.  The  first  is,  that  virtue 
and  duty  have  for  their  object  God.  The  second 
answer  is,  that  their  object  is  our  fellow  men  and 
the  health  of  the  social  organism,  while  our  induce- 
ment to  practice  them  is  in  part  the  constant  teasing 
of  the  tribal  instinct  or  conscience,  and  in  part  our 
imaginative  sympathies,  as  stimulated  by  a  glow  of 
emotion  which  is  consequent  on  our  contemplation 
of  idealized  Humanity  as  a  whole.  "Within  certain 
limits,"  he  says,  "this  second  answer  I  take  to  be 
entirely  right;  but  if  there  were  nothing  further  to 
add,  I  maintain  that  it  would  be  right  in  vain." 
Summing  up  the  ideas  of  the  heroine,  Miss  Consuelo 
Burton,  he  says  that  the  main  duty  which  the  Church 
to-day  enjoins  on  us  is  "our  spiritual  duty  to  the 
material  conditions  of  the  poor" — our  duty  to  adorn 
the  cottage,  though  not  to  destroy  the  castle. 
"Duty  to  the  race  as  a  substitute  for  duty  to  God 
is,"  'he  says,  "worth  nothing.  It  means  nothing. 
But  duty  to  the  race  regarded  as  a  new  and  more 
definite  interpretation  of  our  duty  to  God  is  a  con- 
ception which  to  us  Catholics  of  the  present  day 
means  everything.  Though  it  relates  to  material 
things,  it  does  not  supersede  spiritual.  On  the  con- 

320 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

trary,  it  represents  the  spiritual  world  taking  the 
material  world  into  itself  as  its  minister,  and  the 
Catholic  who  realizes  this  will  find  that  the  echoes 
of  the  mass  and  of  the  confessional  follow  him  into 
the  street  and  mix  themselves  with  the  clatter  of 
omnibuses.  If  any  of  you  think  that  he  or  she  in- 
dividually can  do  little,  after  all,  to  alter  the  general 
condition  of  things,  let  them  not  be  thereby  dis- 
heartened. Let  them  carry  in  their  minds  this 
divine  paradox,  that  it  is  far  more  important  to 
every  man  that  he  should  do  his  utmost  for  Hu- 
manity than  it  ever  can  be  for  Humanity  that  any 
one  man  should  do  his  utmost  for  it.'1 

Illuminated  by  thoughts  like  these,  the  hero  and 
the  heroine  are  once  more  drawn  together;  and 
when  at  night  the  guests  go  back  to  Baveno,  and  the 
hero  is  left  in  his  island  villa  alone,  he  betakes  him- 
self to  a  boat,  and  awaits  the  approach  of  the  morn- 
ing. "At  last,"  says  the  story,  "he  put  the  boat 
about,  with  thoughts  of  returning  home,  and  there, 
far  off,  beyond  the  spikes  of  the  mountains,  he  saw 
that  the  sky  was  pale  with  the  first  colors  of  dawn. 
There,  too,  was  the  star  of  morning,  shining  bright 
with  a  trembling  steadfastness,  and  he  knew  that 
for  him  a  star  had  risen  also.  On  his  spirit  descended 
the  hush  of  the  solemn  hour,  which  makes  all  the 
earth  seem  like  some  holy  sanctuary,  and  there  came 
back  to  him  two  lines  of  Goethe's : 

"The  woman-soul  leadeth  us 
Upward  and  on 
231 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

"Meanwhile  on  the  sliding  and  glassy  waters,  that 
moved  to  left  and  right  at  the  touch  of  his  dipping 
oars,  there  began  to  flicker  a  gleam  of  faint  saffron 
and  rose  color,  and  the  breeze  of  the  daybreak  laid 
its  first  touch  on  his  cheek  and  gently  stirred  a 
straying  lock  of  his  hair.  The  lights  of  Baveno, 
though  still  bright,  looked  belated,  and  the  mounting 
saffron  was  clear  in  the  dome  over  him.  Thoughts 
thronged  on  his  mind  of  many  careers  to  which  his 
life,  with  hers,  might  be  dedicated.  Visions  also, 
though  he  knew  them  too  bright  to  last,  floated 
before  him  and  made  his  being  tingle — visions  of 
great  works  done  among  the  toiling  masses,  of  com- 
fort and  health  invading  the  fastness  of  degradation, 
and  the  fire  of  faith  shining  on  eyeballs  that  had 
long  been  blind  to  it." 

I  am  not  alluding  here  to  The  Old  Order  Changes 
with  a  view  to  discussing  its  merits  or  demerits  as 
a  novel.  I  am  citing  it  merely  as  a  record  of  how 
my  own  social  philosophy  step  by  step  developed  it- 
self, the  problems  of  economics  and  politics  being 
step  by  step  united  with  those  of  psychology,  of 
religion,  of  ambition,  and  the  higher  romance  of  the 
affections.  I  am  dealing  with  what  took  place  in 
•my  own  mind  as  an  example  of  analogous  things 
which  have  probably  taken  place  in  the  minds  of 
most  men  who,  however  they  may  differ  otherwise 
from  myself,  have  been  preoccupied  in  the  same  way. 
Thus  the  emotional  optimism  with  which  this  novel 
of  mine  ends — the  vision  of  the  Old  Order  as  capable 

223 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  being  born  anew  by  a  sudden  reillumination  of 
faith  and  new  acquisitions  of  knowledge — represents, 
it  has  subsequently  seemed  to  me,  a  mood  analogous 
to  that  which  possessed  Lord  Beaconsfield  when  he 
wrote  his  romance  Sybil,  or  when  he  seemed  to  in- 
sinuate that  all  social  strife  might  be  ended  by  doles 
to  the  poor,  distributed  week  by  week  through  the 
almoners  of  manorial  lords. 

Of  Lord  Beaconsfield' s  visions  this  is  not  the  place 
to  speak,  I  am  concerned  here  only  with  the  growth 
and  the  defects  of  my  own;  and  as  to  the  general 
theory  of  things  which  is  dramatized  in  The  Old 
Order  Changes,  its  merits  and  its  defects  seem  to  me 
to  be  these.  As  for  its  merits,  if  compared  with  my 
earlier  works,  Is  Life  Worth  Living?  and  A  Romance 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century — in  which  no  cogni- 
zance is  taken  of  social  politics  whatever — The  Old 
Order  Changes  represents  a  great  extension  of 
thought,  social  problems  being  brought  to  the  fore 
as  an  essential  part  of  the  religious.  If  compared 
with  Social  Equality,  it  represents  an  extension  of 
thought  likewise,  in  that  it  shows  (as  Social  Equality 
does  not)  how  these  two  parts  are  connected. 

It  is,  however,  in  two  ways  deficient.  At  the 
time  when  the  book  was  written,  the  extremist 
party  in  England,  though  comprising  many  militant 
Socialists,  was  for  practical  purposes  composed 
mainly  of  men  who  were  known  as  extreme  Radicals. 
A  prominent  representative  of  this  class  war  was 
Bright.  Another  at  that  time  was  Mr.  Joseph 

223 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Chamberlain.  Instead  of  attacking  all  wealth,  like 
Socialists,  most  of  them  were  business  men  who 
spent  their  lives  in  pursuit  of  it.  They  denounced 
it  in  one  form  only — namely,  land,  and  land  only  as 
the  inheritance  of  aristocratic  owners.  The  extraor- 
dinary inconsistency  of  attitude  by  which  these 
men  were  characterized  created  an  animus  against 
them  in  the  minds  of  many — I  myself  being  one — 
which,  though  far  from  being  undeserved,  was  not 
sufficiently  discriminating.  As  I  pointed  out  in 
Social  Equality — and  the  same  argument  was  re- 
peated in  The  Old  Order  Changes — the  great  modem 
manufacturer,  whatever  he  may  think  about  old 
landed  families,  represents  the  forces  on  which  the 
increasing  wealth  of  the  modern  world  depends. 
And  yet  in  that  novel  I  was  more  than  once  be- 
trayed into  so  far  joining  the  Socialists  as  to  par- 
tially accept  or  repeat  their  denunciations  of  the 
modern  manufacturers  as  persons  owing  all  their 
wealth  to  the  plunder  of  those  employed  by  them. 

This  extreme  view  is,  indeed,  corrected  more  than 
once  by  the  priest;  but  it  is  nevertheless  insinuated 
in  certain  passages  in  which  the  writer,  by  at- 
tributing them  to  the  hero,  seems  to  make  it  his 
own.  It  was  not  till  I  had  carried  my  statistical 
studies  farther  that  I  was  able  to  reduce  the  charge 
hurled  by  Socialists  against  the  modern  employers 
to  what  are  their  true  and  their  relatively  small 
dimensions. 

Meanwhile  I  felt  that  in  The  Old  Order  Changes, 
224 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

as  a  synthesis  of  my  previous  writings,  I  had  made 
my  profession  of  faith  as  clearly  as  I  then  could ;  and 
not  long  after  its  publication  I  betook  myself  for  a 
mental  holiday  to  a  country  where  I  hoped  to  dis- 
cover that  modern  problems  were  unknown. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CYPRUS,    FLORENCE,    HUNGARY 

A  Winter  in  Cyprus — Florence — Siena — Italian  Castles — Cannes — 
Some  Foreign  Royalties — Visit  During  the  Following  Spring 
to  Princess  Batthyany  in  Hungary 

BY  the  time  of  which  I  am  now  speaking 
Richard  Mallock  was  Member  for  the  Tor- 
quay division  of  Devonshire,  and  I  often 
still  helped  him  at  political  and  other  meetings  in 
his  constituency.  Lauriston  Hall,  Torquay,  which 
had  been  for  a  time  my  home,  was  let.  I  stayed 
on  such  occasions  at  Cockington,  or  somewhere  else 
in  the  neighborhood.  One  house  at  which  I  often 
stayed  was  Sandford  Orleigh,  near  Newton,  belong- 
ing to  Sir  Samuel  Baker,  the  traveler  and  Egyptian 
administrator,  with  whom  I  had  for  years  been 
intimate.  In  his  cabinets,  or  on  his  walls,  Sir 
Samuel  had  treasures  and  trophies  from  half  the 
savage  or  out-of-the-way  countries  of  the  world. 
One  day  in  his  study  he  took  from  a  shelf  a  few 
pieces  of  marble — green,  streaked  with  white,  and 
said  to  me:  "Those  are  bits  of  the  precious  verd 
antique.  I  picked  them  up  among  the  mountains  of 
Cyprus,  where  similar  blocks  were  lying  about  me 
everywhere.  Anyone  who  would  bring  this  marble 
down  to  the  sea  might  make  a  fortune  in  no  time." 

226 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

As  Sir  Samuel  talked,  the  whimsical  idea  oc- 
curred to  me  of  going  myself  to  inspect  the  particular 
spot  he  mentioned,  and  seeing  whether  any  enter- 
prise of  such  a  kind  would  be  practicable.  This 
idea,  like  Beckett's  idea  of  his  system,  was  for  me 
at  first  no  more  than  a  plaything,  but  the  very  name 
of  Cyprus  had  always  excited  my  imagination,  and 
the  thought  of  the  island  having  thus  by  chance 
been  revived  in  me,  I  began  to  feel  that  a  visit  to  it 
would  be  a  very  charming  adventure,  and  that  Sir 
Samuel's  story  of  the  marble,  even  if  it  should  prove 
to  be  a  myth,  would  at  least  be  a  plausible  excuse  for 
embarking  on  so  long  a  journey.  Moreover,  it 
provided  Sir  Samuel  with  an  excuse  for  writing  to 
Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  then  governor  of  the  island,  and 
asking  him  to  do  what  he  could  in  the  way  of  securing 
accommodation  for  me  during  my  projected  stay. 
Sir  Henry's  reply  was  to  the  effect  that  if  I  would  so 
time  my  movements  as  ton-each  Cyprus  in  January, 
the  Chief  Secretary,  Colonel  Warren,  would  receive 
me  as  a  guest  for  a  month  or  so,  and  that  during  the 
rest  of  my  stay  he  would  himself  entertain  me  at 
Government  House.  Posts  to  and  from  Cyprus 
were  at  that  time  extremely  slow,  and  it  was  not 
till  nearly  Christmas  that  these  arrangements  were 
complete.  Meanwhile,  by  Sir  Samuel's  advice,  the 
specimens  of  the  marble  were  submitted  to  a  London 
expert.  As  I  was  now  bent  on  going,  his  verdict, 
though  not  very  favorable,  did  nothing  whatever  to 
discourage  me.  What  mainly  occupied  my  mind 

227 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

were  thoughts  of  an  island  which  was  unknown  to 
ordinary  tourists,  the  history  of  which  united  the 
sway  of  Byzantine  emperors  with  that  «of  crusading 
kings,  of  Venetian  doges  and  subsequently  of  Mos- 
lem dynasties,  where  the  mountains  were  crowned 
with  castles  almost  lost  in  clouds;  where  the  walls 
of  the  marine  fortress  in  which  Othello  lodged  cast 
the  white  reflection  of  the  Lion  of  St.  Mark's  on  the 
waters,  and  where  half  the  inhabitants  prayed  with 
their  faces  turned  to  Mecca  and  half  with  their 
eyes  cast  down  before  jeweled  and  gilded  icons — 
an  island,  moreover,  where  I  could  watch  and 
explore  these  hybrid  scenes  and  pageants  without 
any  appreciable  sacrifice  of  the  comforts  and  the  ease 
of  London. 

In  this  agreeable  frame  of  mind,  I  left  one  evening 
the  lamps  of  Charing  Cross  Station  behind  me 
bound  via  Brindisi  for  Alexandria,  from  which  port 
an  Austrian  Lloyd  steamer  would  ultimately  bring 
me  to  Cyprus,  after  a  voyage,  incredibly  slow,  of 
very  nearly  a  week.  On  my  way  out  I  encountered 
several  acquaintances — Sir  Augustus  and  Lady 
Paget,  who  were  going  back  to  Vienna,  and  were  just 
visible  in  the  gloom  of  the  Dover  boat ;  Arthur  Paget, 
bound  for  Africa;  and  also  several  others,  among 
whom  were  Edward  Milner  and  John  St.  Aubyn, 
subsequently  Lord  St.  Levan.  The  goal  of  these 
last  was  Damascus.  We  three  slept  at  Alexandria 
on  the  boat  which  had  brought  us  from  Brindisi, 
and  were  next  day  rowed  across  the  enormous  harbor 

228 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

to  a  black  craft,  the  Diana,  which  had  just  arrived 
from  Trieste,  and  which  by  way  of  Port  Said  and 
Jaffa  brought  us  in  four  days  to  Beyrout.  There, 
after  a  day  of  sightseeing,  we  had  tea  with  the  Eng- 
lish consul,  whose  house  was  very  like  a  mosque. 
Milner  and  St.  Aubyn  were  to  sleep  that  night  at 
a  hotel  and  start  for  Damascus  next  morning  by 
diligence.  I  returned  to  the  ship  alone,  and  I  found 
myself  twelve  hours  later  looking  at  Cyprus  from  the 
open  roadstead  of  Larnaca. 

I  remained  in  the  island  for  something  like  three 
months,  as  the  guest  of  Sir  Henry,  Colonel  Warren, 
and  other  British  officials.  A  year  or  so  afterward 
I  recorded  my  experiences  in  a  short  book  called  In 
an  Enchanted  Island.  It  will  here  be  enough  to 
summarize  the  various  impressions  and  experiences 
which  are  there  described  in  detail. 

My  impression  on  landing  was  one  of  half -forlorn 
disappointment.  The  winter  that  year  in  Europe 
was  the  coldest  within  living  memory.  Even  the 
air  of  Cyprus  had  something  in  it  not  far  from  frost, 
and  the  treeless  hills  seemed  blighted  by  the  clouded 
and  inhospitable  sky.  But  a  day  like  this  proved 
to  be  a  rare  exception.  Cyprus,  as  I  knew  it  in  the 
winter,  was  for  the  most  part  a  land  of  what  English- 
men mean  by  a  late  spring  or  an  early  summer  when 
they  dream  of  it.  The  evenings  were  chilly,  but  the 
days  were  warm  and  shining.  They  were  sometimes, 
though  not  often,  too  warm  for  refreshment.  The 
greens  of  the  trees  glittered,  the  mountains  were 
16  229 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

scarred  with  purple,  and  the  midday  shadows  of 
arcades  were  sharp  as  chiseled  jet.  My  first  "host, 
Colonel  Warren,  had  his  home  in  Nicosia,  a  town  in 
the  middle  of  the  island,  and  twenty  miles  from  the 
sea.  Nicosia  lies  in  a  great  inland  plain,  and,  as 
seen  from  the  hilly  road  which  slopes  slowly  down  to 
it  from  the  south,  it  resembles  the  pictures  of  Damas- 
cus with  which  all  the  world  is  familiar.  Nicosia, 
however,  has  one  feature  which  is  in  Damascus 
wanting.  Among  a  forest  of  minarets  is  a  great 
cathedral,  used  as  a  mosque  since  the  days  of  the 
Turkish  conquest,  but  built  in  the  Middle  Ages  by 
Christian  kings  of  the  house  of  Guy  de  Lusignan. 
The  town  is  a  maze  of  lanes,  to  which  ancient  houses 
turn  un windowed  walls,  broken  only  by  doors  whose 
high,  pointed  arches  often  bear  above  them  the  relics 
of  crusading  heraldry,  and  give  access  to  cloistered 
courts,  the  splash  of  secret  fountains,  and  rockwork 
gay  with  violets.  In  a  house  thus  secluded,  and 
entered  by  such  a  door,  lived  Colonel  Warren,  my 
host,  and  under  his  roof,  the  morning  after  my 
arrival,  I  first  definitely  felt  that  I  had  left  the  West 
behind  me,  when  I  found  that  a  noise  by  which  I 
had  been  just  awakened,  and  which  sounded  like 
the  cawing  of  a  rook,  was  that  of  the  muezzin  borne 
from  a  neighboring  minaret  and  requesting  me  to 
adore  Allah. 

Colonel  Warren  was  an  ardent  antiquarian,  nor 
was  he  altogether  insensible  to  the  fascination  of 
business  ventures.  He  was  not  only  eager  to  tell 

v  230 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

me  whatever  he  knew  of  the  architectural  curiosities 
of  the  island,  ancient  and  medieval,  but  he  also 
offered  me  every  assistance  in  my  quest  of  the  pre- 
cise spot  where,  according  to  Sir  Samuel,  the  green 
marble  was  to  be  found.  He  at  once  put  me  into 
communication  with  the  owners  of  mules  and  car- 
riages, with  guides  and  with  other  persons  whose  aid 
would  be  necessary  for  me  in  reaching  and  exploring 
the  mountains  in  whose  fastnesses  the  treasure  was 
concealed.  He  also  introduced  me  to  a  charming 
professor  from  Edinburgh,  who,  in  some  official 
capacity,  was  excavating  Phoenician  tombs,  and  who, 
by  way  of  taking  a  holiday,  was  willing  to  be  my 
companion.  Accordingly  one  morning  we  set  out 
in  a  carriage  which  brought  us  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountains  where  the  rough  road,  made  by  the  Eng- 
lish, ended,  and  where  mules  awaited  us,  on  whose 
very  disagreeable  backs  the  rest  of  our  expedition 
was  to  be  accomplished.  Sir  Samuel  Baker's  maps 
and  descriptions  provided  us  with  outstanding  land- 
marks, which  were  more  or  less  unmistakable.  The 
spot  which  we  were  seeking  lay  high  up  in  the  clefts 
of  a  curious  mountain  known  as  "The  Five  Fingers," 
and  was  marked  by  a  ruined  church,  a  cave,  and  a 
lonely  cypress  tree.  Our  first  attempt  to  find  this 
spot  was  a  failure.  Our  second  attempt  was  suc- 
cessful. There  could  be  no  mistake  about  it — the 
lonely  cypress  was  there,  the  cave  and  the  church 
also.  There,  too,  after  a  long  search,  we  discovered 
fragments  of  stone — duplicates  of  Sir  Samuel's 

231 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

specimens.  But  these  were  fragments  only.  Noth- 
ing could  be  found  that  was  larger  than  a  large 
pebble.  The  potential  quarries  of  which  Sir  Samuel 
had  spoken  were  children  of  his  own  imagination, 
and  the  only  good  they  did  us  was  to  illustrate  how 
easily  practical  men  may  deceive  themselves — even 
when,  like  Sir  Samuel,  they  are  usually  keen  ob- 
servers. We  did  indeed  bring  a  few  specimens  back 
with  us,  but  to  the  marble  quarry  as  a  practical 
project  I  had  already  said  "Good-by."  Let  all 
disappointed  prospectors  learn  philosophy  from 
me.  I  said  it  without  regret.  I  was  on  the  whole 
relieved — for  now  I  was  free  to  devote  myself  to 
those  pleasures  of  imagination  which  the  life  and 
the  scenes  around  me  had  already  begun  to  stimulate. 
Before  long  each  page  of  my  life  in  Cyprus  was 
like  a  page  from  an  illuminated  missal.  I  climbed 
to  the  mountain  castle  of  St.  Hilarion,  once  occupied 
by  Richard  the  First.  Through  the  traceries  of  its 
windows  and  from  its  towers  I  looked  at  the  snowy 
summits  of  Cilicia  across  sixty  miles  of  sea.  I 
explored  its  stables,  hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock — 
stables  not  for  horses,  but  camels.  I  examined  its 
cisterns,  hanging  on  the  brinks  of  precipices.  While 
on  this  expedition,  I  stayed  with  one  of  the  judges  in 
a  lodge  on  the  mountain  side,  and  spent  a  night  with 
him  looking  out  on  a  garden  of  spices,  and  comparing 
the  Septuagint  version  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  with 
the  English.  On  another  occasion  I  came  in  a  sea- 
ward valley  to  a  beautiful  monastery,  whose  re- 

232 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

fectory  still  was  perfect,  though  there  was  no  life  in 
its  silence  but  the  life  of  oleanders  peering  in  at  the 
windows  and  half  hiding  from  view  the  foam  from 
which  Venus  sprang.  Often  in  the  early  morning, 
on  one  expedition  or  another,  I  saw  groups  of 
peasants  moving  across  dewy  plains,  their  coats  as 
bright  as  Joseph's,  who,  with  their  ass  or  camel,  sug- 
gested the  Flight  into  Egypt.  When  I  journeyed 
for  any  distance  by  road  my  equipage  was  some  old 
landau,  drawn  by  five  horses,  and  accompanied  by 
three  servants,  one  of  these  being  my  own,  who 
spoke  very  fair  English,  and  who  had  been  born  on 
the  slopes  of  Lebanon.  It  was  in  this  manner  that, 
when  I  was  staying  with  Sir  Henry,  I  went  from  Ni- 
cosia to  Famaugusta,  a  distance  of  fifty  miles,  which 
it  took  ten  hours  to  accomplish.  This  was  how 
Englishmen  traveled  in  the  days  of  William  and 
Mary.  Among  the  remains  of  Famaugusta  I  wan- 
dered for  several  days,  its  huge  walls  being  still  very 
nearly  perfect,  though  they  now  inclose  little  but  the 
huts  of  some  Turkish  shepherds,  about  fifty  deserted 
churches,  bright  inside  with  frescoes,  and  a  cathedral 
so  profusely  carved  that  it  looks  like  a  hill  of  flowers. 
Within  the  limits  of  a  day's  expedition  from 
Famaugusta  were  the  remains  —  I  was  taken  to 
visit  them- -not  entirely  ruinous,  of  the  country 
residence  of  one  of  the  crusading  nobles.  I  found 
my  way  into  monasteries  still  peopled  by  devotees, 
and  saw  in  the  eyes  of  many  of  them  monastic  faith 
still  shining.  In  strange  churches  I  studied,  behind 

233 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

gilded  screens  and  icons,  magnificent  copies  of  the 
Gospels,  and  read  aloud  to  a  sacristan  this  passage 
and  that,  asking  him  to  read  them  also,  so  that  I 
might  adjust  my  pronunciation  to  his.  On  one  oc- 
casion, from  a  height  near  Government  House,  I 
watched,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  a  celebrated 
icon  in  action — a  jeweled  portrait  of  the  Madonna, 
said  to  have  been  painted  by  St.  Luke.  On  the  plain 
below  was  the  broad  bed  of  a  river,  dry  from  con- 
tinued drought.  Unanswered  prayers  for  rain  had 
for  some  time  been  frequent  and  at  last  this  miracu- 
lous relic  had  been  brought  forth  from  its  hiding 
place,  as  a  charm  which  was  bound  to  effect  what 
ordinary  prayers  could  not,  and  was  being  carried 
along  the  banks  of  the  river  by  a  black  procession 
of  monks,  who  were  followed — so  it  seemed  to  me — 
by  half  the  population  of  the  neighborhood.  As 
these  companies  drew  nearer,  I  gradually  distin- 
guished outbursts  of  distant  shouting.  I  had  ar- 
rived at  the  psychological  moment.  Far  off,  along 
watercourses  lately  dry,  a  streak  of  light  was  ad- 
vancing like  the  coils  of  a  silver  snake.  This  was 
the  river,  which  was  actually  coming  down  in  flood. 
Presently,  with  a  rattle  of  pebbles,  it  was  pouring 
by  below  me.  In  less  than  an  hour  the  portent  died 
away,  but  left  the  memory  of  a  new  miracle  behind  it. 
The  only  thoroughly  modern  thing  in  Cyprus  at 
the  time  of  my  own  visit  was  Government  House, 
which  is  not  in  Nicosia,  but  outside  it.  It  is  built 
wholly  of  wood,  and  was  sent  out  from  England — 

234 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

a  mere  series  of  rooms  surrounding  a  court,  which 
was  then  marked  out  for  a  tennis  ground.  There 
was  only  one  steam  engine  in  the  island,  and  (need- 
less to  say)  no  railway.  These  appliances  not  being 
there,  nobody  missed  them.  I  myself  thought  the 
absence  of  railways  pleasant  rather  than  otherwise, 
and  steam  as  an  aid  to  industry  was  the  last  thing — 
so  it  seemed — that  the  native  population  wished 
for.  The  Duke  of  Sutherland,  it  appeared,  had  not 
very  long  ago  thought  of  buying  an  estate  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  island  and  applying  all  the 
methods  of  science  to  the  cultivation  of  early  pota- 
toes. He  would,  however,  in  order  to  insure  suc- 
cess, have  had  to  buy  from  the  neighboring  peas- 
ants certain  way  leaves  and  water  rights,  and  for 
these  they  banded  together  to  ask  such  preposterous 
prices  that  the  duke,  as  they  half  hoped  he  would 
do,  abandoned  an  enterprise  by  which  they,  then 
the  poorest  of  the  poor,  would  have  been  the  first 
persons  to  benefit. 

Sir  Henry  often  discussed  with  me  the  economic 
conditions  of  Cyprus.  The  population,  he  said, 
comprised  no  class  that  in  England  would  be  called 
rich,  and  very  few  of  the  peasants,  though  mostly 
their  own  landlords,  lived  a  life  which  an  English 
plowman  would  tolerate.  The  inhabitants  as  a 
whole  were  certainly  exceptionally  liable  to  a  class 
of  diseases  the  cause  of  which  is  malnutrition,  and 
I  came,  as  I  talked  to  Sir  Henry,  to  see  in  Cyprus 
a  very  useful  refutation  of  the  doctrine  that  the 

235 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

masses  are  only  poor  when  a  few  rich  people  plunder 
them. 

Meanwhile  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  reflect  that 
nobody  in  Cyprus  could  make  trouble  by  holding 
up  the  rich  to  execration,  the  reason  being  that 
there  were  no  rich  to  execrate,  and  the  charm  which 
the  imaginative  spectator  found  in  the  life  around 
him  was  not  likely  to  be  broken  by  any  very  rude 
awakening.  Sir  Henry  himself  was  not  perhaps 
sensitive  to  romance,  but  he  did  all  he  could  to  aid 
me  in  my  own  quest  of  it,  and  until  my  time  for 
quitting  his  roof  came,  one  day  followed  another 
leaving  behind  it  soothing  or  exciting  memories,  the 
colors  of  which  even  now  have  not  lost  their 
freshness. 

On  my  way  homeward  I  went  from  Cyprus  to 
Florence,  to  stay  with  some  friends  who  had  a  villa 
there.  The  time  was  Easter,  but  the  weather  was 
like  a  damp  winter.  I  found  there  many  acquaint- 
ances. Among  them  was  a  Madame  de  Tchiacheff, 
whom  I  had  known  in  my  boyhood  at  Littlehampton. 
Scotch  by  birth,  she  had  married  a  well-known  Rus- 
sian, and  her  house,  with  its  cosmopolitan  company, 
was  among  the  most  distinguished  in  Florence. 
I  and  my  hostess  went  to  pay  a  call  on  "Ouida," 
whom  I  knew  more  or  less  by  correspondence,  but 
the  coachman  took  us  by  mistake  to  the  Villa 
Careggi  instead.  By  the  kindness  of  Madame  de 
Tchiacheff  I  was  made  known  to  the  Strozzi  family, 
and  we  visited  their  monumental  palace,  which  was 

236 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

not  then  shown  to  the  public.  With  two  other 
palatial  houses  I  came  to  be  acquainted  also — one 
the  home  of  the  Russo-American  Bourtolines,  the 
other  then  occupied  by  Mr.  Macquay  the  banker. 
The  latter  of  these  houses  was  specially  interesting 
to  myself  as  having  been  once  the  home  of  the  then 
Austrian  Minister,  Baron  von  Hugel,  whose  younger 
son  my  cousin,  Miss  Froude,  married. 

The  constant  question  which  to  me  all  these  great 
houses  suggested  was,  how  were  the  fortunes  made 
by  which  they  were  maintained  and  built?  The 
Pitti  Palace,  which  would  hold  the  palace  of  the 
Strozzi  in  its  court,  was  built  by  a  private  citizen, 
Luca  Pitti,  for  himself.  According  to  modern  re- 
quirements it  is  too  large  for  a  king.  I  often  thought 
that,  were  I  an  American  millionaire,  I  would  secure 
the  services  of  a  hundred  of  the  most  accomplished 
students  of  Europe  and  set  them  to  examine  simul- 
taneously the  business  archives  of  Florence,  and 
thus  provide  (as  in  a  short  time  they  might  do) 
a  mass  of  digested  materials  on  which  a  complete 
economic  history  of  Florentine  wealth  might  be 
founded. 

From  Florence  I  went  for  a  few  days  to  Siena, 
where,  with  a  completeness  to  which  Florence  offers 
no  parallel,  the  Middle  Ages  spectacularly  still  sur- 
vive. I  visited,  while  I  was  there,  the  great  castle 
of  Broglio,  which,  standing  among  mountains  on 
the  brink  of  a  wooded  precipice,  lifts  into  the  air 
its  clusters  of  red-brick  towers  like  tulips.  I  visitecl 

237 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

also  Cetinale — a  strange  classical  villa,  built  by  a 
Cardinal  Chigi,  and  surrounded  by  miles  of  ilex 
woods,  which  are  peopled  with  pagan  statues.  Re- 
turning to  Florence,  I  discovered,  with  the  aid  of  a 
large-scale  ordnance  map,  a  building  equally  strange, 
and  so  little  known  even  to  Florentines  that  our 
coachman  had  never  heard  of  it,  and  often  had  to 
ask  the  way.  This  is  Torre  a  Cona — half  medieval 
castle  and  half  classical  palace.  It  occupies  the 
summit  of  a  flat-headed  hill  or  mountain.  It  is 
surrounded  by  a  circular  park  full  of  deer  and 
statues.  It  is  approached  by  an  avenue  of  cypresses 
sixty  feet  in  height,  and  between  these  trees,  on 
either  side  of  the  way,  are  colossal  horses  rampant, 
beneath  whose  extended  forelegs  the  carriage  of  the 
invader  passes.  I  opened  a  large  door  in  one  wing 
of  the  house,  and  found  myself  in  a  miniature 
theater,  with  its  semicircle  of  boxes  decorated  in 
green  and  silver. 

My  own  days  at  Florence,  however,  were  on  this 
occasion  prematurely  ended  by  the  breaking  of  a 
drainpipe  in  the  villa  of  my  valued  hostess,  and  my 
consequent  migration  at  very  short  notice  to  Cannes. 
I  started  at  night,  and  in  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning  I  had  to  change  trains  at  Genoa.  As  I 
paced  the  dark  platform,  the  air  was  bleak  and 
wintry,  and,  looking  back  with  regret  to  the  shining 
suns  of  Cyprus,  I  took  my  place  at  last  in  another 
train,  shivering.  For  a  few  hours  I  slept.  When 
I  woke  I  was  less  uncomfortable.  The  air,  unless 

238 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

this  was  mere  fancy,  had  lost  something  of  its  sting. 
I  looked  out  of  the  window,  and  from  what  I  could 
see  in  the  grayness  I  guessed  that  we  were  somewhere 
or  other  between  Rappallo  and  Spezzia.  As  the 
light  grew  slowly  clearer  the  prospects  were  still 
bleak,  but  yet  with  the  following  of  one  chill  five 
minutes  on  another  some  change  was,  it  seemed,  in 
progress.  The  gray  air  acquired  a  tinge  of  purple, 
the  chill  turned  to  warmth,  the  thin  purple  turned 
to  a  soft,  enveloping  bloom;  and  when  the  train 
reached  San  Remo  a  sunrise  worthy  of  midsummer 
was  shining  on  a  world  of  roses. 

Cannes,  though  the  season  was  not  far  from  its 
close,  was  as  yet  by  no  means  empty.  As  I  drove 
to  my  hotel  the  streets  were  alive  with  carriages, 
white  skirts,  and  the  shining  of  red  sunshades.  I 
was  soon  asked  to  participate  in  a  number  of  forth- 
coming dissipations,  the  first  of  these  being  a  tea 
party  given  by  Philip  Green  at  his  villa,  "La  Fore~t," 
which  was  close  to  my  own  doors.  The  company 
comprised  a  charming  and  interesting  group  of 
French  ex-royalties,  and  a  live  German  king,  who 
looked  like  a  commercial  traveler.  This  party  re- 
mains in  my  mind  as  though  it  were  a  vignette  on 
the  last  page  of  a  diary,  the  principal  entries  in 
which  related  to  a  land  of  which  Catherine  Cornaro 
was  the  last  royal  ruler,  and  whose  last  democracy 
was  democracy  as  understood  by  the  doges. 

On  the  whole,  my  expedition  to  Cyprus,  which, 
together  with  its  two  sequels,  had  occupied  about 

239 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

four  months,  did  for  me  more  than  I  had  ever  seri- 
ously expected.  It  was  at  once  a  stimulus  and  a  rest. 
I  returned  to  England  in  May,  pleased  with  the 
prospect  of  enjoying  a  couple  of  months  of  London, 
after  which,  in  Scotland  and  elsewhere,  I  hoped  to 
resume  my  study  of  political  and  social  problems, 
and  restate  them  in  forms  which  politicians  might 
find  useful.  This  labor  was,  however,  often  inter- 
rupted by  the  pressure  of  family  business,  which 
would  call  me  back  for  a  week  or  ten  days  to  Devon- 
shire. When  the  more  urgent  details  were  for  the 
time  settled,  as  they  were  toward  the  end  of  the  year, 
I  went  once  more  to  Cannes,  and  subsequently  to 
the  Cap  d'Antibes,  being  one  of  a  small  party  who 
were  to  stay  at  the  same  hotels  and  lunch  and  dine 
in  private.  No  such  arrangement  could  possibly 
have  prospered  better.  I  had,  as  I  knew  I  should 
have,  much  time  to  myself,  and  among  my  lug- 
gage was  a  boxload  of  statistical  Blue  Books,  which 
formed  my  companions  in  hours  of  industrious  soli- 
tude. We  made  a  number  of  expeditions  to  old  towns 
in  the  hills,  one  of  our  frequent  companions  being 
Father  Bernard  Osborne,  the  Catholic  nephew  by 
marriage  of  Mr.  Froude  the  historian,  and  son  of 
Rev.  Lord  Sidney  Godolphus  Osborne,  then  the 
most  stalwart  choregus  of  ultraevangelical  Protes- 
tantism. Another  frequent  companion  was  Miss 
Charlotte  Dempster,  famous  as  a  writer  of  novels — 
especially  of  one,  Blue  Roses,  the  scene  of  which  was, 
oddly  enough,  Cockington.  Miss  Dempster,  whose 

240 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

mere  presence  was  a  monument  to  her  own  celebrity, 
was  much  given  to  the  cultivation  of  royalties,  and 
which  was  to  bring  to  her  villa  the  presence  of  a 
reigning  sovereign.  So  important  did  she  deem  the 
occasion  that,  before  the  potentate  was  due,  she 
got  together  the  ladies  whom  she  had  honored  with 
an  invitation  to  meet  him,  and  instructed  them  as 
to  how,  in  his  august  presence,  they  should  demean 
themselves.  The  instructions  had  been  given,  and 
had  been  followed  by  an  expectant  hush,  when  sounds 
in  the  hall  were  heard  like  those  of  the  Second 
Advent.  "Now,  ladies,"  said  Miss  Dempster,  sol- 
emnly, "rise."  The  ladies  rose  like  one  man,  the 
portals  were  thrown  open,  and  a  loud  voice  announced 
a  shy  little  pink  Welshman,  Mr.  Hugh  Price  Jones, 
who  had  innocently  looked  in  for  the  purpose  of  a 
familiar  call. 

My  original  intention,  when  I  joined  my  friends 
at  Cannes,  had  been  to  remain  on  the  Riviera  till 
April,  and  then  go  back  to  England,  but  I  received 
one  morning  a  letter  which  suggested  a  project  of 
a  more  adventurous  kind,  the  thought  of  which 
stirred  me  as  much  as  my  last  year's  voyage  to 
Cyprus,  though  it  would  not  geographically  take  me 
to  any  such  remote  distance. 

This  came  about  as  follows.  Among  the  country 
houses  of  England  with  which  I  became  familiar 
soon  after  leaving  Oxford  was  Eaglehurst,  situated 
on  the  Solent  and  immediately  facing  Cowes.  It 
was  then  occupied  by  Count  and  Countess  Edmund 

241 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Batthyany,  subsequently  Prince  and  Princess.  The 
countess,  who  had  seen  much  of  the  diplomatic 
life  of  Europe,  was  a  shrewd,  kindly,  and  a  most 
agreeable  woman,  who  spoke  English  like  a  native. 
Her  husband,  who  had  been  educated  at  Eton,  was 
English  in  all  his  tastes,  and  at  Cowes  he  was  an 
illustrious  character,  on  account  of  the  many  vic- 
tories of  his  racing  yacht  Kriemhilda.  From  the 
Cowes  Week  till  the  middle  of  September  he  kept 
open  house  at  Eaglehurst,  where  for  ten  days  or  a 
fortnight  I  had  many  times  been  his  guest.  All 
kinds  and  degrees  of  ornamental  and  agreeable 
people,  from  archdukes  downward,  flocked  to  Eagle- 
hurst  from  The  Island,  and  made  day  after  day  a 
garden  party  on  its  lawns.  When  the  count,  on 
the  death  of  his  father,  succeeded  to  the  family 
honors,  he  gave  up  his  lease  of  Eaglehurst,  and  the 
now  Prince  and  Princess  took  up  their  abode  at 
the  castle  of  Kormend  in  Hungary.  The  Prince 
subsequently  discovered  that  Vienna  was  more  to 
his  taste.  The  Princess,  however,  preferred  Kor- 
mend, which  nothing  would  induce  her  to  abandon, 
and  there  she  invited  a  number  of  her  English 
friends  to  visit  her.  I  was  one  of  the  number.  Her 
invitation  was  often  renewed,  but  for  this  reason 
or  that  I  had  never  been  able  to  accept  it.  I  had, 
indeed,  put  the  matter  quite  out  of  my  mind  when, 
during  my  visit  at  Cannes,  I  heard  from  her  once 
again.  "I  saw,  in  some  paper,"  she  said,  "that  you 
were  going  to  be  at  Cannes  for  the  winter.  Come 

242 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

on  to  me  afterward  and  I  will  show  you  a  Hun- 
garian spring." 

If  any  country  had  ever  roused  in  my  imagina- 
tion more  interest  than  Cyprus,  that  country  was 
Hungary.  Of  all  European  countries  I  gathered 
that  it  was  the  least  progressive;  that  all  sorts  of 
impossible  things  might  happen  in  its  enchanted 
forests;  that  the  rulers  were  still  noble;  that  the 
peasants  were  still  contented  (a  fact  which  they 
signalized  by  kissing  their  lords'  hands),  and  that 
nothing  was  very  different  from  what  it  had  been 
before  the  first  French  Revolution.  Here  was 
temptation  too  strong  to  resist.  I  was  asked  to  be 
a  guest  at  Kormend  from  April  till  the  end  of  May. 
I  wrote  to  say  I  would  come,  and  when  the  time 
arrived  I  went. 

I  was  happy  in  having  with  me  an  admirable 
Austrian  servant  who  had  been  in  the  country 
before,  and  knew  more  or  less  of  its  ways.  I  found 
his  resources  inexhaustible,  except  on  one  occasion. 
I  stayed  on  the  way  at  Vicenza,  for  the  purpose  of 
seeing  some  of  its  Palladian  palaces,  and  I  asked  him, 
when  I  reached  the  hotel,  to  find  some  guide  or 
waiter  who  spoke  either  French  or  English.  He 
could  find  no  one  who  knew  a  syllable  of  one  tongue 
or  the  other.  Next  morning,  however,  he  had 
secured  an  Italian  native  who  spoke  and  under- 
stood German.  Here  was  all  I  wanted.  I  spoke 
English  to  my  servant,  he  spoke  German  to  the 
Italian,  the  Italian  spoke  to  the  people  of  whom  I 

243 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

wanted  to  make  inquiries.  This  arrangement,  I 
found,  was  productive  of  great  advantages.  Having 
made  notes  of  the  palaces  I  wished  to  see,  I  told 
my  Italian  in  each  case  to  inquire  whether  an  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  much  interested  in  architecture, 
might  be  privileged  to  visit  the  interior,  of  the 
beauty  of  which  he  had  heard  much.  The  fact  that 
I  was  making  my  rounds  with  a  retinue  of  two  at- 
tendants was  accepted  as  such  a  guaranty  of  my 
own  good  character  and  importance  that  I  was  ad- 
mitted with  the  utmost  courtesy  to  stately  and  in- 
teresting interiors,  from  the  portals  of  which  I  should 
otherwise  have  been  driven  with  suspicion  and 
ignominy. 

Having  seen  what  I  could  at  Vicenza,  I  spent  a 
night  at  Treviso,  whence,  having  got  up  before  sun- 
rise, I  drove  in  a  weeping  morning  to  the  wonderful 
Villa  Maser,  about  twenty  miles  away — the  villa 
whose  halls  and  chambers  are  gorgeous  from  end  to 
end  with  the  frescoes  of  Paul  Veronese,  and  whose 
tutelary  gods  look  out  over  the  vastness  of  the  Lom- 
bard plains,  though  their  view  is  slightly  impeded 
by  the  bulk  of  a  Renaissance  church.  That  evening 
I  ensconced  myself  in  an  ill-lit  train,  which,  passing 
close  to  Venice  and  crossing  the  Austrian  frontier, 
brought  me  and  my  servant  to  a  strange  little  medi- 
eval town,  where  we  slept  in  an  arcaded  hostelry 
which  would  not  have  seemed  strange  to  Erasmus. 
I  halted  here  because  in  the  neighboring  wonderland 
is,  as  I  knew  from  descriptions,  a  castle  more  fan- 

244 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tastic  than  any  fancy  of  Albert  Durer's — the  high- 
perched  castle  of  Hoch-Osterwitz.  I  spent  next  day 
in  exploring  it.  It  outdid  all  my  dreams.  Reached 
by  a  corkscrew  road  which,  passing  through  strange 
gatehouses,  winds  upward  round  an  isolated  hill 
resembling  a  pine-clad  sugar  loaf,  the  castle  covers 
the  summit.  It  suggested  Tennyson's  line  to  me: 
"Pricked  with  incredible  pinnacles  into  heaven." 
Not  so  large  or  terrific  as  St.  Hilarion,  it  inflicts  per- 
haps on  the  imagination  a  yet  acuter  twinge,  for  St. 
Hilarion  belongs  to  an  age  so  wholly  dissociated 
from  our  own  that  the  distance  between  them  is 
beyond  the  reach  of  measurement.  Hoch-Oster- 
witz, on  the  other  hand,  though  in  consequence  of 
its  inconvenient  position  its  owners  no  longer  lived 
in  it,  was  still  not  wholly  derelict.  Its  roofs  were 
watertight;  a  portion  of  it  was  occupied  by  a  care- 
taker; two  of  its  halls  were  full  of  neglected  armor; 
and  some  fragments  of  ancient  furniture  survived  in 
a  cell-like  bedroom  which  were  sufficient  for  the 
baron  when  he  came — as  from  time  to  time  he  did — 
to  see  the  caretaker,  a  sort  of  steward,  on  business. 
The  life  of  a  distant  age  still  smoldered  within  the 
ancient  walls  like  a  fire  not  quite  extinguished,  and 
the  nerves  of  the  present  and  of  the  past  formed  one 
living  and  unbroken  tissue.  A  strange  example  of 
this  fact  revealed  itself  to  me  when,  wandering  in  a 
rough  courtyard,  I  noticed  a  little  building  which 
jutted  out  over  a  precipice.  I  opened  the  door,  and 
discovered  a  Lilliputian  chapel  with  seats  in  it  for 
17  245 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

some  twenty  people.  Facing  me  was  an  altar 
trimmed  with  decaying  lace  and  supporting  a  mil- 
dewed breviary,  and  before  it,  in  full  armor,  with 
gauntleted  hands  outstretched,  was  the  effigy  of  a 
kneeling  knight.  He  had  knelt  there  as  an  image  of 
prayer  for  more  than  three  centuries.  When  sight- 
seeing was  over,  and  we  descended  to  the  world 
below,  my  excellent  servant  said  to  me,  "Ah,  sir, 
if  these  trees  could  talk,  what  strange  things  they 
could  tell  us!"  Resuming  our  journey  that  evening, 
we  reached  Gratz  by  midnight,  where  I  slept  in  a 
lofty  bedroom  of  the  days  of  Maria  Theresa.  By  the 
following  afternoon  I  was  at  Kormend,  drinking 
tea  with  the  Princess,  and  answering  her  many 
questions — for  she  was  an  unappeasable  gossip — 
about  old  English  friends. 

The  castle  of  Kormend  lies  in  a  great  plain.  On 
one  side  of  it  is  a  park  planted  in  radiating  alleys, 
according  to  the  taste  of  Le  Notre.  On  the  oppo- 
site side  its  precincts  abut  on  the  market  place  of 
a  small  town,  and  from  the  south  and  north  it  is 
approached  by  two  poplar  avenues  which  together 
traverse  the  Batthyany  territory  for  something  like 
thirty  miles  in  an  absolutely  straight  line.  The 
dwelling  house  is  a  large,  square  block,  with  a  court- 
yard in  the  middle  and  a  tower  at  each  angle.  One 
of  its  frontages  forms  the  side  of  a  forecourt  flanked 
by  grandiose  outbuildings — estate  offices,  stables, 
and  a  great  frescoed  ballroom.  Elsewhere  round 
the  house  was  a  very  untidy  flower  garden,  which 

246 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

half  the  old  women  of  the  little  town  spent,  so  it, 
seemed  to  me,  most  of  their  days  in  weeding — herein 
reviving  my  recollections  of  Dartington  Hall  and 
Denbury.  Indeed,  throughout  my  whole  stay  at 
Kormend  country  life  in  Hungary  was  constantly 
reminding  me  of  what  country  life  was  during  my 
own  early  days  in  Devonshire.  These  likenesses 
gave  piquancy  to  the  points  of  difference.  Kor- 
mend, though  containing  a  good  deal  of  English 
furniture,  and  a  certain  amount  of  valuable,  if  not 
very  valuable,  tapestry,  was  not  well  furnished 
according  to  English  standards.  The  stonework  of 
the  great  staircase  leading  to  the  principal  floor  was 
unpolished  and  rude,  and  the  walls  were  rudely 
whitewashed.  My  own  bedroom,  which  in  many 
ways  was  delightful,  was  reached  by  a  vaulted  pas- 
sage so  cold  and  draughty  that  the  Princess  advised  i 
me  always  to  wear  my  hat  when  I  traversed  it. 
There  was  not  a  bell  in  the  house,  and,  if  I  had  not 
had  my  own  servant  with  me,  who  was  placed  in  a 
room  near  mine,  I  should  have  been  helpless.  And 
yet  the  doors  of  this  dwelling  were  guarded  by  a 
porter  in  crimson  robes,  who  wielded  a  staff  of  office 
topped  by  a  prince's  coronet.  Most  of  the  dishes 
at  dinner  might  have  come  from  some  rough  farm- 
house, but  the  pastry  could  hardly  have  been  equaled 
by  the  finest  chej  in  Paris,  while  the  walls  of  the  cir- 
cular dining  room  were  daubed  with  theatrical  pillars, 
so  that  it  looked  like  a  ruined  temple  on  the  stage  of 

some  company  of  strolling  players  in  a  barru 

247 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Other  contrasts  and  other  notable  things  I  dis- 
covered as  the  days  went  by.  The  whole  of  the 
lower  portion  of  one  side  of  the  house  was  a  museum 
of  family  archives,  many  of  them  going  back  to  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  most  of 
the  attic  floor — a  kind  of  museum  likewise — was 
crowded  with  precious  spoils  taken  by  the  Batthy- 
anys  from  the  Turks — jeweled  swords  and  muskets, 
horsecloths  sewn  with  emeralds,  and  pavilions,  still 
splendid,  which  once  had  sheltered  Pashas  in  the 
field.  Another  curiosity  was  a  theater  still  display- 
ing the  scenery  which  had  been  painted  for  some 
private  performance  before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

During  the  first  week  of  my  visit  the  Princess  and 
I  were  alone,  and  considerately  for  most  of  the  day 
she  left  me  to  my  own  devices.  I  had  brought  out 
with  me  to  Cannes  a  diary  of  my  life  in  Cyprus,  and, 
inspired  by  my  present  surroundings,  I  set  myself 
to  begin  a  task  which  more  than  once  I  had  con- 
templated— the  task  of  working  my  notes  into  a 
small  coherent  book.  I  very  soon  found  this  pursuit 
absorbing,  and  my  hostess  realized  that  my  enter- 
tainment would  be  far  from  burdensome  to  herself. 
Meanwhile  when  we  were  together  I  was  never 
weary  of  questioning  her  with  regard  to  Hungarian 
life.  She  told  me  all  sorts  of  quaint  and  curious 
things.  She  told  me  of  robbers  who  still  haunted 
the  forests — of  forest  gypsies  whose  lives  were  a 
mixture  of  theft  and  music,  and  who  often  twanged 

243. 


V 

MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

their  instruments  in  a  tavern  near  the  castle  gates. 
She  told  me  of  former  Batthyanys  and  of  other 
castles  once  possessed  by  them.  She  told  me  how 
the  latest  alterations  of  Kormend  had  been  made 
to  satisfy  the  whims  of  a  beautiful  French  mistress 
whom  a  Batthyany  had  brought  there  from  the 
court  of  Louis  Quatorze.  Sometimes  she  asked  to 
dinner  a  priest  and  also  one  of  the  agents  called 
Molna,  in  whom  she  reposed  great  confidence. 
When  I  was  talking  with  the  agent  the  Princess 
played  the  part  of  interpreter.  The  priest  and  I 
took  refuge  in  bad  Latin.  I  copied  his  pronuncia- 
tion, and  we  both  of  us  threw  Ciceronian  language 
to  the  winds.  On  the  whole  we  were  mutually  in- 
telligible, and  we  differed  so  favorably  from  the 
talkers  of  the  fashionable  world  that  we  both  of  us 
meant  a  great  deal  more  than  we  said.  One  of  the 
questions  as  to  which  I  was  most  anxious  for  infor- 
mation was  whether  there  were  in  the  neighborhood 
any  other  old  castles,  a  visit  to  which  I  might  find 
interesting.  Neither  the  Princess,  the  priest,  nor 
the  agent  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  had  very 
much  to  tell  me.  At  all  events  I  found  out  presently 
for  myself  much  more  than  they  could  tell  me. 

Adjoining  the  dining  room  was  a  small  oval 
library,  the  contents  of  which  the  Princess  had, 
oddly  enough,  never  been  at  the  trouble  of  examin- 
ing. I  found  that  they  consisted  largely  of  mag- 
nificent French  folios,  consecrated  entirely  to  de- 
scriptions and  elaborate  engravings  of  court  life  in 

249 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Paris  as  it  was  under  Louis  Quinze — of  royal  balls, 
of  banquets  and  garden  f6tes,  and  of  the  chief 
hotels  in  the  Faubourg — not  only  of  their  archi- 
tecture, but  of  their  furniture  also,  and  even  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  furniture  was  arranged.  Of 
these  pictures  some  of  the  most  curious  were  those 
which  represented  balls  or  other  great  entertain- 
ments as  they  would  have  appeared  to  the  spectator 
had  the  facades  of  the  buildings  in  which  they  took 
place  been  removed,  and  the  halls,  rooms,  and  even 
the  servants'  staircases  been  revealed  in  section, 
like  the  rooms  in  a  doll's  house  when  the  hinged 
front  swings  open.  In  one  compartment  kitchen 
boys  would  be  carrying  up  dishes  from  below  to 
magnificent  footmen  on  a  landing.  In  another  some 
powdered  lady,  close  to  the  dividing  wall,  would  be 
offering  her  eyes  and  patches  to  the  homage  of  some 
powdered  beau.  With  pictures  such  as  these  last 
the  Princess  was  specially  pleased.  I  brought  a 
number  of  the  great  volumes  into  the  drawing-room, 
and  we  spent  in  examining  them  many  pleasant 
evenings. 

But  I  presently  found  in  the  library  one  which, 
much  humbler  in  appearance,  was  to  myself  of  much 
more  immediate  interest.  It  was  smaller  in  size, 
and  its  binding  was  stained  and  broken.  This,  too, 
was  full  of  pictures.  As  pictures  they  had  no  great 
merit,  but  together  they  made  up  the  prize  for  which 
previously  I  had  looked  in  vain.  This  book,  pub- 
lished about  the  year  1680,  consisted  entirely  of 

250 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

bald  but  careful  engravings  of  the  principal  castles 
of  Hungary,  some  of  them  in  ruins,  but  most  of  them 
still  inhabited.  This  book  I  showed  to  the  Princess 
likewise,  having  marked  the  castles  which  apparently 
were  not  very  far  from  Kormend,  and  asked  her  if 
they  still  existed,  and  whether  a  visit  to  any  of  them 
would  be  practicable.  Though  she  had  heard  of 
some  of  them,  her  own  knowledge  was  vague,  but 
she  passed  the  book  on  to  Molna.  Many  of  these 
castles  Molna  knew  by  name.  Some  of  them  he 
had  seen,  some  of  them  were  still  inhabited,  their 
aspect,  so  he  reported,  being  practically  indis- 
tinguishable from  that  represented  in  the  old  en- 
gravings. He  picked  out  five  or  six  as  being  well 
within  the  compass  of  a  day's  or  a  two  days'  expedi- 
tion. If,  said  the  Princess,  I  wished  to  see  these 
places  I  might  as  well  begin  doing  so  at  once,  as  she 
was  before  long  going  to  receive  some  visitors  whom 
she  trusted  that  I  would  help  her  to  entertain. 
Matters  were  arranged  accordingly.  She  placed  a 
carriage  and  four  brisk  horses  at  my  disposal,  and 
under  Molna' s  advice  my  explorations  began. 

Most  of  the  great  castles  of  Hungary  remained 
veritable  castles  long  after  castles  in  England  had 
been  transformed  into  halls  and  manor  houses. 
The  reason  was  that  constant  wars  with  the  Turks 
made  it  still  necessary  that  every  great  house  should 
be  a  fortress.  Thus  it  came  about  that  the  orna- 
ments and  luxuries  of  life — many  of  them  under 
French  influence — developed  themselves  within  walls 

251 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

approachable  only  by  drawbridges;  that  boudoirs 
were  neighbored  by  towers  loopholed  for  musketry; 
and  that  under  smooth  lawns  and  orangeries  rocks 
were  hollowed  into  caverns  in  which  on  occasion 
regiments  of  troops  could  hide.  One  of  the  greatest 
of  these  great  castles,  Riegersbourg,  was  refortified 
in  the  days  of  Pope  and  Addison.  It  covers  an  ele- 
vated plateau  of  which  every  side  is  precipitous,  and 
above  the  entrance  arch  is  a  white  marble  tablet  on 
which,  in  very  bad  Latin,  the  builder,  Baron  Hammer 
Purgstall,  bewails  the  fact  that  the  rocks  by  their 
irregular  shape  have  caused  him  to  violate  the  rules 
of  classical  architecture.  Of  such  castles  I  visited 
as  many  as  I  could.  In  all  of  them,  as  though  by 
some  enchantment,  the  present  had  become  the  past. 
The  unrest  of  western  Europe  in  the  modern  sense 
was  dead.  In  dining  rooms  trays  of  the  finest 
Japanese  lacquer  formed  a  background  for  oaken 
tables  into  which  the  beard  of  Barbarossa  might 
have  grown.  Knights  in  armor  kept  watch  over 
billiard  tables  whose  green  baize  had  survived  the 
fadings  of  two  hundred  years.  For  me  this  half- 
visionary  world  held  the  same  intoxicating  spell 
that  many  ears  discover  in  Wagner's  music. 

The  Princess,  when  I  described  these  scenes  to  her, 
showed  a  genuine  though  rather  faint  interest.  At 
all  events,  before  very  long  my  explorations  were 
interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  some  of  her  promised 
guests.  These — a  brother  and  sister — were  in  some 
ways  modern  enough,  but  in  one  way  they  sug- 

252 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

gested  the  period  of  Wilhelm  Meister.  They  brought 
with  them  not  only  their  servants.  They  brought 
with  them  also  a  retinue  of  two  musicians,  who 
emerged  from  their  quarters  in  the  evening,  and 
played  to  us  after  dinner.  But  we  had  other 
music  besides.  The  weather  by  this  time  had 
grown  rapidly  warmer,  and,  when  these  performers 
had  retired,  we  went  out  on  a  balcony  overlooking 
the  great  forecourt,  and  from  some  unseen  quarter 
beyond  the  castle  walls  came  night  after  night  the 
vibrations  of  a  gypsy  band.  Nor  was  this  the  only 
sound.  From  the  frondage  of  the  park  close  by 
there  would  come  in  answer  to  it  the  early  notes 
of  the  nightingales. 

The  first  installment  of  visitors,  with  their  at- 
tendant musicians,  having  departed,  their  places 
were  presently  taken  by  a  distinguished  Hungarian 
diplomat,  Count  -  -  and  his  wife.  When  I  say 
of  the  count,  who  spoke  English  perfectly,  that  one 
could  not  distinguish  him  from  a  highly  placed 
English  gentleman,  I  am  paying  him,  no  doubt,  an 
insular,  but  I  mean  it  to  be  a  sincere,  compliment. 

But  the  Princess  had  still  another  guest  in  reserve, 
on  whose  qualities,  so  I  judged  from  her  tones,  she 
set  even  a  higher  store.  This  was  a  Hungarian 
lady,  young,  well  born,  and  married,  but  unfor- 
tunately neglected  by  her  husband,  although  she 
was  extremely  beautiful.  As  my  mind  was  much 
engaged  with  the  thoughts  of  old  castles,  and  also 
with  the  composition  of  my  own  little  work  on 

253 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Cyprus,  I  paid  no  great  attention  to  what  the 
Princess  said  in  praise  of  this  guest  whose  advent 
was  now  approaching.  But  when  the  lady  arrived 
I  felt  that  the  praise  was  justified.  As  she  and  her 
husband  are  by  this  time  beyond  the  reach  both  of 
praise  and  blame,  I  may  say  of  her  without  fear  of 
impertinence  that  she  was  a  model  of  innocent 
beauty,  that  her  conversation  was  as  charming  as 
her  expression,  and  her  dresses  as  charming  as  her 
conversation.  I  am  myself  not  much  addicted  to 
cards,  but  when  she  proposed  in  the  evenings  to 
teach  me  the  Hungarian  game  of  Tarok  I  should 
not  have  been  human  had  I  failed  to  become  her 
pupil.  But  I  was  never  long  in  her  company  with- 
out being  conscious  of  a  feeling  that  she  was  a  woman 
who,  through  no  fault  of  her  own,  had  already  had  a 
history,  or  was  certain  to  have  one  some  day.  This 
feeling  did  not  mislead  me.  A  year  later  it  was 
justified.  I  learned,  by  accident,  that  her  history 
had  been  short,  forlorn,  and  fatal.  Its  hidden 
actualities,  reconstructed  by  my  own  imagination,  I 
afterward  combined  in  my  novel  A  Human  Document. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

TWO   WORKS    ON   SOCIAL   POLITICS 

The  Second  Lord  Lytton  at  Kneb worth — "Ouida" — Conservative 
Torpor  as  to  Social  Politics — Two  Books:  Labor  and  the 
Popular  Welfare  and  Aristocracy  and  Evolution — Letters  from 
Herbert  Spencer 

MY  visit  to  Cyprus  one  year,  and  my  visit 
to  Hungary  the  next,  were  both  of  them 
retreats  from  the  life  of  political  and  even 
philosophical  thought.  They  were  frank  acts  of 
truancy  in  the  regions  of  pure  romance;  where  life, 
individual  and  social,  is  a  spectacle  to  be  enjoyed, 
not  a  problem  of  which  thinkers  compete  in  devising 
an  explanation.  But  on  returning  from  Hungary  to 
England  the  practical  affairs  of  the  moment  met  me 
again  halfway,  at  Vienna,  where  for  a  day  or  two  I 
broke  my  journey.  My  acquaintances  at  Vienna 
were  few,  but  they  included  Sir  Augustus  and  Lady 
Paget  at  the  Embassy,  whom  I  had  last  seen  at  mid- 
night on  the  deck  of  the  Dover  packet  when  I  was 
bound  for  the  shores  of  Cyprus  more  than  a  year 
before.  Ambassadors,  if  they  know  their  business, 
are  necessarily  preoccupied  with  the  present,  and 
when  lunching  or  dining  with  Sir  Augustus  it  was  not 
possible  to  forget  it.  It  was  all  the  more  impossible 
because  on  these  occasions  there  was  another  diplo- 
mat present,  also  an  old  acquaintance — Sir  Henry 

2SS 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Drummond  Wolf,  who  happened  to  be  then  on  his 
way  home  from  Persia,  and  who  was  voluble  on 
questions  of  international,  and  especially  of  English, 
politics.  So  far,  however,  as  my  own  mood  was  con- 
cerned, this  dissipation  of  romance  by  realities  was 
a  more  or  less  gradual  process.  Even  when  I  was 
again  in  England  my  inclinations  to  the  life  ro- 
mantic— to  what  Virgil  (I  think)  calls  the  "amor 
ulterior  is  rip&" — survived  for  many  months  the 
new  recall  of  my  mind  to  the  philosophies  of  prosaic 
action. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  fact  I  remember  a  week- 
end visit  which  I  paid  that  summer  to  Robert,  the 
second  Lord  Lytton,  at  Knebworth.  The  occasion 
was  marked  by  the  coappearance  of  things  romantic 
and  practical  in  more  ways  than  one.  On  the  day 
of  my  arrival  one  of  the  first  topics  discussed  was 
"Ouida,"  who  at  that  time  was  in  England,  and  had 
been  staying  at  Knebworth  only  the  week  before. 
"Ouida's"  view  of  life  was  nothing  if  not  romantic. 
Lytton,  during  the  previous  spring,  had  been  spend- 
ing some  weeks  in  Florence.  He  was  quite  alone; 
and  "Ouida,"  who,  apart  from  her  affectations,  was 
a  very  remarkable  woman,  had  had  no  difficulty  in 
securing  his  frequent  company  at  her  villa,  where 
she  fed  him  at  an  incredible  price  with  precociously 
ripe  strawberries.  On  her  memory  of  these  tender 
proceedings  she  had  built  up  a  belief  that  his  nature 
had  been  emptied  of  everything  except  one  great 
passion  for  herself,  and  she  had  actually  come  to 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Knebworth  convinced  that  a  single  word  from  her 
would  tear  him  from  the  bosom  of  his  family  and 
make  him  hers  alone.  The  magic  word  was  said. 
The  expected  results  had,  however,  failed  to  follow — 
perhaps  because  the  word,  or  words,  had  not  been 
very  happily  chosen.  They  had  been  these:  "Why 
don't  you  leave  this  bourgeois  man-and-wife  milieu 
behind  you  and  prove  in  some  Sicilian  palace  what 
life  may  really  mean  for  people  like  you  and  I?" 

On  the  occasion  of  the  same  visit  another  meeting 
between  romance  and  reality  was  this:  Knebworth 
was  originally  a  dignified  but  plain  structure,  built 
(I  should  say  at  a  guess)  in  the  time  of  Charles  II; 
but,  as  is  well  known,  the  first  Lord  Lytton  (the 
novelist),  inspired  by  the  taste  of  his  time,  and  aided 
by  inexhaustible  stucco,  metamorphosed  it  into  the 
semblance  of  a  pinnacled  castle  or  abbey,  the  old 
dining  room  reappearing  in  the  form  of  a  baronial 
hall.  One  evening  after  dinner  I,  my  host,  and  a 

certain  Admiral  B happened  to  be  in  the  hall 

alone.  While  the  admiral  was  reading  a  letter,  my 
host  drew  me  aside  and  gave  me  an  amusing  descrip- 
tion of  the  rise  of  the  admiral's  family.  His  grand- 
father, having  accumulated  a  substantial  fortune 
as  a  solicitor,  discovered  a  ruin — a  small  tower  in 
France — the  name  of  which  was  identical  with  his 
own.  This  ruin  he  bought,  and  declared  that  it  was 
the  cradle  from  which  his  own  family  sprang.  He 
then,  having  bought  an  estate  in  an  English  county, 
proceeded  to  build  a  Norman  castle  in  ruins,  and 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

adjoining  this  he  built  a  turreted  Tudor  mansion. 
Here  was  a  family  pedigree  translated  into  terms  of 
stone.  The  builder  crowned  his  work  by  the  adop- 
tion of  feudal  manners,  to  which  his  domestics  had 
so  to  adapt  their  own  that  when  a  neighbor,  who 

called  on  him,  asked  if  Mr.  B was  at  home,  the 

reply  of  the  footman  was,  "The  right  honorable 
gentleman  is  taking  a  walk  on  the  barbican."  My 
host,  having  finished  his  story,  was  for  a  moment 
called  away.  He  had  no  sooner  gone  than  the  ad- 
miral, coming  up  to  me,  jerked  his  thumb  in  the 
direction  of  the  surrounding  panels,  and  said,  con- 
fidentially, "The  whole  of  this  was  put  up  by  that 
man's  father." 

But  in  a  much  more  memorable  way  romance 
conquered  reality  one  night  in  the  drawing-room. 
The  ladies  of  the  party  had  disappeared;  and  by 
way  of  doing  something  Lytton,  two  other  men,  and 
myself  became  somehow  grouped  round  a  card 
table  with  our  minds  made  up  for  whist.  At  first 
we  put  down  our  cards  with  promptitude  and  a 
semblance  of  attention,  but  someone  before  long 
made  some  observation  which,  though  interesting, 
was  wholly  irrelevant  to  the  game.  The  three  others 
put  down  their  cards  to  listen,  and  had,  when  they 
took  them  up  again,  some  difficulty  in  remembering 
who  was  to  play  next.  Presently  one  of  them  quoted 
a  line  of  poetry.  It  was  from  Coleridge's  "Kublai 
Khan."  Somebody  else  suggested  a  mild  doubt  as 
to  whether  that  poem  had,  as  the  author  contended, 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

really  been  composed  in  a  dream.  The  game  once 
more  proceeded,  but  our  host's  eyes  had  already 
begun  to  wander,  and  at  last  he  frankly  threw  his 
own  cards  on  the  table.  Everybody  else  followed 
him.  Cards  were  things  forgotten.  Their  place  was 
taken  by  poetry.  Single  lines  were  cited  which  the 
authors  had  dreamed  undoubtedly.  The  most  re- 
markable was  dreamed  by  a  brother  of  Tennyson,  after 
a  day  spent  in  examining  a  bundle  of  ancient  manu- 
scripts. The  line — it  was  Latin — was  as  follows: 

"Immemorabilium  per  fulva  crepuscula  palpans" 
— that  is  to  say,  "fumbling  among  the  tawny  twi- 
lights of  immemorables."  Lord  Lytton  looked  as 
if  he  were  in  a  dream  himself.  Presently  he  spoke 
as  though  his  mind  were  coming  back  from  a  dis- 
tance. "I,"  he  said,  "dreamed  a  poem  in  India.  It 
has  never  been  written  down,  but  I  still  can  remem- 
ber every  line  of  it.  Listen."  The  poem,  which  was 
full  of  vague  Oriental  imagery,  was  perfectly  in- 
telligible, and  throbbed  with  a  certain  sonority  like 
that  of  distant  gongs;  but  no  sane  man  would  have 
written  it  in  his  waking  moments.  In  that  fact 
lay  its  charm.  The  author's  voice,  naturally  low 
and  musical,  acquired  new  tones  as  he  recited  it, 
giving  to  it  the  qualities  of  an  incantation;  and 
round  us,  as  though  fashioned  out  of  shadows,  was 
the  large,  dimly  lighted  drawing-room,  which  the 
old  novelist  had  incrusted  with  impossible  heraldries, 
culminating  in  escutcheons  of  pre-Christian  Welsh 
kings. 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  pseudo-Gothic  revival,  of  which  Knebworth 
is  a  late  monument,  but  which  was  inaugurated  by 
Horace  Walpole  in  the  stucco  of  Strawberry  Hill, 
is,  if  judged  by  the  strict  canons  of  architectural 
taste,  absurd,  but  as  time  goes  on  arid  the  taste  which 
produced  it  vanishes  the  houses  in  which  it  embodied 
itself  cease  to  be  mere  absurdities.  They  acquire 
the  rank  and  dignity  of  historical  documents.  They 
are  more  than  mere  architecture.  They  represent 
attempts  at  a  reconstruction  of  life — a  new  fusion  of 
politics  with  poetry,  romance,  and  mysticism.  Their 
fault  is  that  this  fusion  has  failed  to  become  actual. 
And  yet  these  attempts,  though  largely  recorded 
in  stucco,  still  evoke  visions  and  atmospheres  from 
which  many  of  us  are  loath  to  be  driven  into  the 
wintry  actualities  of  to-day. 

For  myself,  on  my  return  from  Hungary,  the  in- 
fluence of  romance  was  further  protracted  by  the 
fact  that  I  for  some  time  was  occupied  in  completing 
my  work  on  Cyprus;  but  when  this  at  last  had  re- 
ceived its  finishing  touches  there  was  nothing  left 
that  could  keep  other  interests  at  bay.  Radical 
and  Socialist  oratory  was  resounding  on  every  side. 
Doctrines  with  regard  to  Labor  were  again  being 
promulgated  in  forms  so  extreme  that  they  reached 
the  verge  of  delirium,  and  were  yet  received  with 
acclamations.  Old  statistical  errors,  for  the  com- 
plete refutation  of  which  unimpeachable  evidence 
abounded,  were  shouted  afresh,  as  though  they 
were  not  open  to  question.  But  in  respect  of  all 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

facts  and  principles  which  lie  really  at  the  basis  of 
things,  the  Conservative  party  was,  as  a  whole, 
dumb. 

I  began  to  say  to  myself  daily,  "Semper  ego 
auditor  tantumf  Nunquam  ne  reponamf  "  "Will  no 
one  wake  up  this  unhappily  lethargic  mass,  and  by 
forcing  the  weapons  of  knowledge  and  reason  into 
their  hands  provoke  them  and  enable  them  to  meet 
the  enemy  at  the  gate?"  Every  other  interest, 
philosophic,  romantic,  religious,  fell  away  from  me 
for  the  time.  Wherever  I  was,  whether  in  London  or 
country  houses — for  in  these  respects  my  habits  re- 
mained much  what  they  had  been — I  had  with  me 
the  works  of  economists,  statistical  reports,  multi- 
tudes of  current  speeches,  all  bearing  on  industrial 
and  social  questions.  At  intervals  I  dealt  with  one 
or  another  of  these  in  tentative  articles  contributed  to 
reviews  like  the  Nineteenth  Century,  till  at  length  I 
redigested,  rewrote  and  combined  them,  thus,  after 
some  three  years  of  effort,  producing  a  succinct  book 
called  Labor  and  the  Popular  Welfare. 

This  book,  in  carefully  simplified  language,  dealt 
comprehensively  with  the  fundamental  causes  to 
which  the  increased  wealth  of  the  modern  world  is 
due,  and  on  which  the  maintenance,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  enlargement,  of  this  modern  increment  de- 
pends. The  argument  of  the  book,  in  its  general 
outline,  is  as  follows.  Without  manual  labor  there 
can  be  no  wealth  at  all.  Unless  most  of  its  members 
are  laborers,  no  community  can  exist.  But  so  long 
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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

as  wealth  is  produced  by  manual  labor  only  the 
amount  produced  is  small.  In  whatever  way  it 
may  be  distributed,  the  majority  will  be  primitively 
poor.  The  only  means  by  which  the  total  product 
of  a  given  population  can  be  increased  is  not  any  new 
toil  on  the  part  of  the  laboring  many,  but  an  in- 
tellectual direction  of  the  many  by  a  super-capable 
few.  Here  is  the  true  cause  of  all  modern  increments 
of  wealth.  Let  these  increments  be  produced,  and 
it  is  possible  for  the  many  to  share  in  them.  It 
is  on  securing  a  share  of  them  that  their  only  hope 
of  an  ampler  life  depends,  but  it  is  from  the  efforts 
of  the  few  that  any  increase  of  their  shares  must 
come.  The  fundamental  facts  of  the  case  are,  in- 
deed, of  a  character  the  precise  reverse  of  that  which 
the  theories  of  the  Socialists  impute  to  them.  In 
proportion  as  the  wages  of  labor  rise  above  a  given 
minimum  the  many  are  the  pensioners  of  the  few, 
the  few  are  not  the  plunderers  of  the  many,  and 
those  who  maintain  the  opposite  are  mere  intellectual 
gamins  standing  on  their  heads  in  a  gutter. 

This  thesis  I  had  outlined  already  in  my  earlier 
work,  Social  Equality,  but  in  Labor  and  the  Popular 
Welfare  it  is  urged  with  more  precision,  and  the 
general  argument  is,  as  in  the  earlier  work  it  was  not, 
supported  by  a  skeleton  of  more  or  less  precise  sta- 
tistics. This  book,  by  the  advice  of  a  friend,  was 
offered  to  a  celebrated  publisher,  a  pillar  of  sound 
Conservatism ;  but  in  effect,  if  not  in  so  many  words, 
he  said  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  its  sub- 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ject  being,  in  his  opinion,  unlikely  to  interest,  or  its 
argument  to  benefit,  anyone.  It  is,  I  think,  not 
merely  an  author's  vanity  which  inclines  me  to  re- 
gard his  decision  not  so  much  as  a  mistaken  literary 
judgment,  but  as  the  expression  of  a  temperamental 
apathy  with  which  many  Conservatives  are  inflicted 
with  regard  to  social  problems.  An  entire  edition 
of  the  work  was  bought  soon  after  its  publication 
by  the  Central  Conservative  Office  as  a  textbook 
for  the  use  of  speakers.  With  a  similar  object  in 
view,  another  association,  six  or  seven  years  later, 
offered  to  purchase  an  entire  edition  likewise;  but 
I  was  obliged  to  decline  the  proposal,  because  I 
had  come  to  recognize  that  the  statistical  portions 
of  the  work  had,  in  part,  become  obsolete,  and  were 
in  part  not  sufficiently  complete.  Meanwhile  suc- 
cessive editions  of  it  had  been  sold  to  the  English 
public.  It  had  many  readers  in  America,  and  a 
very  large  sum  was  offered  me  by  a  Melbourne  news- 
paper for  a  series  of  short  articles  in  which  its  main 
arguments  should  be  condensed. 

My  personal  concern,  however,  in  these  matters 
was  diminished  by  the  fact  that  the  argument  of 
this  work,  as  a  whole,  soon  seemed  to  me  susceptible 
of  a  more  comprehensive  statement.  I  had  already, 
as  I  have  said  before,  attempted  in  my  novel,  The 
Old  Order  Changes,  to  unite  the  problems  of  industrial 
and  social  politics  with  those  relating  to  religion  and 
the  higher  forms  of  affection,  whereas  in  Labor  and 
the  Popular  Welfare  I  had  confined  my  attention  to 

263 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

pure  economics  only.  I  had,  indeed,  thus  confined 
it  in  Social  Equality  also.  But  it  now  began  to  dawn 
on  me  that,  quite  apart  from  the  sphere  of  religion, 
the  philosophy  of  modern  economics  could  be,  and 
required  to  be,  extended  in  what  for  me  was  a  new 
direction. 

A  year  or  two  after  the  publication  of  Labor  and 
the  Popular  Welfare  a  work  made  its  appearance 
which,  although  it  was  couched  in  the  driest  terms  of 
philosophy,  sold  as  rapidly  as  any  popular  novel,  and 
raised  its  author  at  once  from  absolute  obscurity 
to  fame.  This  was  Social  Evolution,  by  Mr.  Benjamin 
Kidd.  Mr.  Kidd's  style,  apart  from  certain  tricks 
or  mannerisms,  was,  for  philosophic  purposes,  ad- 
nirable.  But  no  mere  merits  of  style  would  account 
for  the  popularity  of  a  work  which  consisted,  in 
form  at  all  events,  of  recondite  discussions  of  evo- 
lution as  conceived  by  the  Darwinians  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  disciples  of  Weismann  on  the  other. 
The  popularity  of  Mr.  Kidd's  book  was  due  to  the 
general  drift  of  it.  Just  as  Darwin's  theory  of 
evolution,  with  its  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the 
strongest,  provided  a  scientific  basis,  unwelcome  to 
many,  for  aristocracy,  Mr.  Kidd's  aim  was  to  show 
that  evolution  in  its  higher  forms  was  in  reality  a 
survival  of  the  weakest,  and  thus  provided  a  scientific 
basis  for  democracy — democracy  by  constant  im- 
plications being  identified  with  some  form  of 
Socialism.  To  me  this  book,  which  I  examined 
with  extreme  care,  seemed,  in  the  practical  bearing, 

264 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

a  piece  of  monumental  claptrap,  though  it  was 
claptrap  of  the  highest  order,  and  was  for  that  reason 
all  the  more  pernicious.  Mr.  Kidd,  in  dealing  with 
the  facts  of  social  life,  seemed  to  me  to  be  dealing 
not  with  facts,  but  clouds — clouds  which  suggested 
facts,  as  actual  clouds  may  suggest  a  whale  or 
weasel,  but  which  yet,  when  scrutinized,  had  no 
definite  content.  To  me  this  book  rendered  a  very 
valuable  service,  I  found  in  it  an  epitome  of  every- 
thing against  which  my  own  mind  protested;  and 
I  soon  set  myself  to  prepare  a  series  of  tentative 
studies  in  which  certain  of  Mr.  Kidd's  positions 
were  directly  or  indirectly  criticized.  If  I  remember 
rightly,  these  were  published  at  intervals  in  the 
Contemporary  Review;  and  their  substance,  expanded 
and  digested,  appeared  by  and  by  in  a  volume 
which  I  called  Aristocracy  and  Evolution. 

Of  this  volume,  which  was  a  criticism  not  only  of 
Mr.  Kidd,  but  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  also,  the 
fundamental  thesis  was  similar  to  that  of  Social 
Equality,  and  of  Labor  and  the  Popular  Welfare — 
namely,  that  in  proportion  as  societies  progress  in 
civilization  and  wealth  all  appreciable  progress,  and 
the  sustentation  of  most  of  the  results  achieved  by 
it,  depend  more  and  more  on  the  directive  ability  of 
the  few;  and  this  thesis  was  affiliated  to  the  main 
conclusions  of  evolutionary  science  generally.  It 
was  admitted  that,  within  certain  limits,  results 
achieved  by  the  few  were  absorbed  and  perpetuated 
by  the  many,  though  the  activities  of  the  originators 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

might  have  ceased,  and  that  a  proper  definition  of 
evolution  pure  and  simple  would  be:  "The  orderly 
sequence  of  the  unintended."  But,  at  the  same 
time,  it  was  shown  that  an  "orderly  sequence  of  the 
unintended,"  though  it  is  a  part  of  what  we  mean  by 
progress,  is  a  small  part  only,  the  major  part  still 
requiring  the  intentional  activities  of  the  few,  not 
only  for  its  initiation,  but  for  its  sustentation  also. 

This  argument  was  set  forth  with  great  minute- 
ness, and  it  was  shown  how  many  most  distinguished 
thinkers,  while  admitting  its  general  truth,  were 
constantly  obscuring  it  by  formulae  which  were,  in 
effect,  denials  of  it.  Among  the  writers  thus  re- 
ferred to  was  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  who  in  one 
passage  described  the  Napoleonic  wars  as  an  inci- 
dent in  the  process  of  evolution  and  in  another 
passage  cited  them  as  examples  of  the  results  of  the 
solitary  wickedness  of  one  super-capable  man.  With 
regard  to  these  issues  I  received  some  interesting 
letters  from  Mr.  Spencer  himself.  His  contention 
was  that  I  had  quite  misrepresented  his  meaning. 
Economically,  at  all  events,  the  functions  of  the 
super-capable  man  were  in  his  opinion  as  important 
as  they  possibly  could  be  in  mine.  I  replied  that  if 
such  were  his  opinion  he  very  often  obscured  it, 
but  that  I  hoped  he  would  acquit  me  of  any  conscious 
unfairness  to  himself.  His  first  letters  were  not 
without  a  touch  of  acerbity,  but  he  ended  with 
amicably  stating  what  his  actual  views  were,  and 
saying  that  if  I  only  amended  certain  passages 

266 


HERBERT   SPENCER 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERAtURE 

relating  to  himself,  he  was  in  entire  agreement  with 
my  whole  argument  otherwise. 

I  never  met  Mr.  Spencer,  and  of  what  he  may  have 
been  in  conversation  I  have  not  the  least  conception ; 
but  a  story  is  told  of  him  which  shows  that  he  must 
have  had  a  vein  of  humor  in  him  which  his  writings 
do  not  suggest.  His  favorite  relaxation  was  bil- 
liards. This  game  he  played  with  more  than  average 
skill,  but  on  one  occasion,  much  to  his  own  chagrin, 
he  found  himself  hopelessly  beaten  by  a  very  im- 
mature young  man.  "Skill  in  billiards,  up  to  a 
certain  point,  is  a  sign,"  he  said,  "of  sound  self- 
training.  Too  much  skill  is  a  sign  of  a  wasted  life." 

To  go  back  to  Aristocracy  and  Evolution,  though  its 
sale  was  equal  to  some  of  the  works  of  Herbert 
Spencer  himself,  it  was  by  no  means  comparable  to 
that  of  the  treatise  of  Mr.  Kidd,  to  which  it  was  de- 
signed as  a  counterblast.  Of  this  the  main  reason 
was,  I  may  venture  to  say,  not  that  it  was  inferior 
in  point  of  style  or  of  pertinence,  or  of  logical  strength 
of  argument,  but  that,  while  appealing,  like  Mr. 
Kidd's  work,  to  serious  readers  only,  it  appealed  to 
the  sentimentalism  of  a  very  much  smaller  number 
of  them — if,  indeed,  it  can  be  said  to  have  appealed 
to  sentimentalities  at  all;  whereas  Mr.  Kidd  had  a 
semi-Socialist  audience  ready  for  him,  who  lived 
mainly  by  sentiment,  whose  sentimentalities  had 
anticipated  his  own,  and  who  were  only  waiting  for 
some  one  from  whom  they  might  learn  to  sing  them 
to  some  definite  intellectual  tune.  Moreover,  unlike 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Labor  and  the  Popular  Welfare,  which  was  equally 
remote  from  sentimentalism,  Aristocracy  and  Evo- 
lution did  not  supply  the  place  of  it  by  providing 
Conservative  thinkers  with  arguments  suitable  for 
immediate  use  on  the  platform. 

Here  we  have  the  old  difficulty  which  has  always 
beset  Conservatives  when  face  to  face  with  revolu- 
tionaries. The  revolutionaries,  or,  rather,  the  lead- 
ing spirits  among  them — for  revolutions  are  always 
the  work  of  a  small  body  of  malcontents — require 
no  rousing.  They  welcome  any  arguments,  philo- 
osophic  or  otherwise,  which  may  tend  to  invest  them 
with  the  prestige  of  scientific  thinkers;  but  the 
Conservatives  require  to  be  roused,  and  roused  in 
two  different  ways — first,  in  respect  of  the  principles 
on  which  their  own  position  rests,  and  secondly, 
in  respect  of  the  methods  by  which  those  principles 
can  be  presented  to  the  multitude  in  a  manner  which 
shall  produce  conviction.  Looking  back  on  Aris- 
tocracy and  Evolution,  I  now  think  that,  if  I  could 
have  rewritten  it  in  the  light  of  the  above  con- 
siderations, I  should  modify,  not  its  argument,  but 
the  manner  in  which  this  argument  was  presented. 
Much  of  its  substance  I  have  incorporated  in  what 
I  have  written  since;  but,  as  it  stood  when  I  finished 
it,  I  felt  it  so  far  satisfactory  that  it  expressed  all  I 
had  then  to  say  as  to  the  subjects  of  which  it  treated, 
and  my  house  of  political  thought  was  for  the  time 
empty,  swept,  and  garnished.  After  two  years' 

labor  spent  on  it,  though  this  had  been  carried  on  in 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

very  agreeable  circumstances — in  Highland  castles 
and  shooting  lodges,  or  at  the  Rodens'  house  in 
Ireland — I  felt  the  need  of  rest — of  forgetting  in 
intercourse  with  agreeable  men  and  women  that 
anything  like  disagreeable  men  existed,  who  ren- 
dered the  labors  of  political  thought  necessary.  My 
mind,  however,  instead  of  resting,  was  presently 
driven,  or  driven  back,  into  activities  of  other  kinds. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

RELIGIOUS   PHILOSOPHY   AND   FICTION 

The  So-called  Anglican  Crisis — Doctrine  and  Doctrinal  Disruption — 
Three  Novels:  A  Human  Document,  The  Heart  of  Life,  The  In- 
dividualist— Three  Works  on  the  Philosophy  of  Religion: 
Religion  as  a  Creditable  Doctrine,  The  Veil  of  the  Temple,  The 
Reconstruction  of  Belief — Passages  from  The  Veil  of  the  Temple. 

A  YEAR  or  so  after  the  publication  of  Aris- 
tocracy and  Evolution  I  found  myself  taking 
by  accident  quite  a  new  departure.  I  was 
offered  and  accepted  a  place  on  the  board  of  a  small 
company,  and  was  thus  abruptly  summoned  from 
the  world  of  economic  philosophy  to  that  of  practical 
action.  The  object  of  the  company  was  to  perfect 
and  introduce  an  invention  which,  had  it  been 
properly  developed  as  a  mechanism  and  skillfully 
dealt  with  otherwise,  might  well  have  become 
popular.  The  general  idea  was  certainly  sound 
enough.  With  regard  to  this  all  concerned  were 
unanimous.  But  as  soon  as  the  project  assumed  a 
minutely  practical  form  all  sorts  of  difficulties  arose. 
The  mechanism  was  one  which  might  be  constructed 
in  a  number  of  alternative  ways,  and,  according  to 
the  way  chosen,  the  cost  of  manufacture  would 
vary  very  considerably,  and  its  use  to  the  general 
public  would  vary  to  a  degree  still  greater.  Since 

270 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  board  comprised  several  engineers,  a  successful 
manufacturer  of  pianos,  and  a  lawyer  highly  re- 
spected in  the  domain  of  local  government,  I 
imagined  that  these  preliminary  difficulties  would 
very  soon  be  solved.  I  was,  however,  much  mis- 
taken. Each  director  had  some  idea  of  his  own, 
which  clashed  with  the  ideas  of  others,  not  indeed 
as  to  fundamentals,  but  purely  as  to  incidental  de- 
tails. This  rendered  concerted  action  as  impossible 
as  it  would  have  been  had  the  differences  related 
not  to  means,  but  to  ends;  and  nobody  united  in 
himself  sufficient  technical  knowledge  with  sufficient 
moral  initiative  to  harmonize  these  conflicting  ele- 
ments, and  thus  to  render  concerted  action  practi- 
cable. The  enterprise,  in  consequence,  soon  came 
to  an  end,  certain  of  the  directors  bearing  most  of 
the  loss.  But  I,  at  all  events,  got  something  for 
my  money  in  the  way  of  an  instructive  experience. 
It  was  an  experience  which  illustrated  by  fact  what 
I  had  previously  insisted  on  as  a  matter  of  general 
theory — namely,  that  no  enterprise  undertaken  by 
a  number  of  persons  can  possibly  succeed  unless  it 
has  some  man  of  exceptional  strength  at  the  head 
of  it,  who  will  use  the  wits  of  others  according  to 
his  own  judgment;  and,  further,  that  this  man's 
strength  must  be  of  a  very  peculiar  kind,  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  qualities,  moral  or  intel- 
lectual, which  make  their  possessors  illustrious  in 
other  domains  of  life. 

This  taste  of  business  experience  did  not  heighten 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

my  appreciation  of  the  mental  leisure  which  other- 
wise I  now  enjoyed.  It  was  a  leisure,  however,  which 
before  very  long  took  the  form  of  activity  in  a  new 
direction. 

The  more  important  questions  which  agitate  the 
mind  of  an  age,  just  like  those  which  agitate  the 
mind  of  an  individual,  engross  and  affect  it,  not 
simultaneously,  but  in  alternation.  One  actor  re- 
cedes for  the  moment  and  makes  way  for  another, 
and  the  newcomer  is  an  old  actor  returning.  About 
the  time  of  which  I  am  now  speaking  there  was — 
on  the  surface,  at  all  events — a  lull  in  social  contro- 
versy, and  a  new  outbreak  of  religious.  An  illus- 
tration of  this  fact  may  be  found  in  the  extraordinary 
popularity  achieved  by  a  novel  purely  religious  in 
interest,  its  name  being  Robert  Elsmere,  and  its 
authoress  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.  Its  religious  in- 
terest is  of  a  highly  specialized  kind.  It  is  the  story 
of  an  Anglican  clergyman  who  starts  as  an  earnest 
and  absolutely  untroubled  believer  in  the  traditional 
dogmas  which  the  Church  of  England  inculcates. 
He  is  thus  at  peace  with  himself  till  he  gradually 
becomes  intimate  with  a  certain  distinguished 
scholar.  This  scholar,  who  is  the  squire  of  his  parish, 
is  the  possessor  of  an  enormous  library,  rich  in  the 
writings  of  continental  and  especially  of  German 
skeptics.  Having  suggested  to  Robert  Elsmere  sun- 
dry disquieting  arguments,  he  turns  him  loose  in 
his  library,  begging  him  to  use  it  as  his  own.  The 
clergyman  accepts  the  invitation.  He  soon  is  ab- 

272 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

sorbed  in  the  works  of  such  writers  as  Strauss  and 
Renan;  and  little  by  little  their  spirit  becomes  his 
own.  Their  eyes  become  his.  Everything  which 
orthodoxy  demands  in  the  way  of  the  supernatural 
disappears.  The  sacraments  become  mummeries. 
Even  Christ,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  no  longer  lives. 
The  clergyman  is  left  in  desolation.  How,  he  asks, 
can  the  Church  (by  which  he  means  the  Anglican 
Church)  help  him?  What  evidence,  what  shred 
even  of  probability,  have  its  ministers  to  support 
their  teaching?  They  hardly,  if  closely  pressed, 
know  what  they  mean  themselves,  and  the  super- 
natural teaching  of  one  section  of  Anglicans  con- 
tradicts that  of  the  others.  The  one  moral  which 
her  hero  draws  from  his  studies  resolves  itself  into 
the  words,  "Miracles  do  not  happen." 

Mrs.  Ward's  novel  was  particularly  appropriate 
to  the  time  at  which  it  was  published.  The  ques- 
tion of  what  a  man,  as  a  minister  of  the  English 
Church,  might  or  might  not  teach  without  sur- 
rendering his  office  or  without  abjuring  his  honesty 
was  being  hotly  debated  in  reviews,  in  Convocation, 
and  at  countless  clerical  Congresses;  but  these  re- 
sulted in  no  unanimous  answer.  The  English  Church, 
indeed,  as  a  teaching  body,  was  held  by  many  people 
to  be  on  the  very  verge  of  disruption.  The  situation 
was  precisely  similar  to  that  which  in  my  book, 
Is  Life  Worth  Living?  I  had  myself  predicted  ten 
years  before  as  inevitable.  If  Christianity  means 
anything  definite — anything  more  than  a  mood  of 

273 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

precarious  sentiment — the  only  logical  form  of  it  is 
that  represented  by  the  (Ecumenical  Church  of 
Rome.  This  had  been  my  previous  argument,  and, 
stimulated  by  current  events,  I  felt  impelled  to  re- 
state it  in  greater  detail  and  with  more  pungent 
illustrations.  I  found  particular  satisfaction  in 
analyzing  the  utterances  of  dignitaries  of  the  Broad- 
Church  party,  such  as  Farrar  and  Wilberforce, 
whose  plan  for  rejuvenating  the  coherence  of  the 
Anglican  Church  was  to  reduce  all  its  doctrine  which 
savored  of  the  supernatural  to  symbols.  One  of 
them  proposed,  for  example,  to  salvage  the  doctrine 
of  the  Ascension  by  maintaining  that  its  true  mean- 
ing is,  not  that  Christ  rose  from  the  earth  ver- 
tically (which  would  indeed  be  absurd),  but  that  he 
disappeared,  as  it  were,  laterally,  by  withdrawing 
himself  somehow  or  other  into  the  fourth  dimension 
of  space.  According  to  another,  the  statement  that 
Christ  on  a  specified  day  ascended  was  merely  a 
symbolical  way  of  saying  that  about  the  time  in 
question  his  work  on  earth  was  finished,  and  that 
he  had,  like  Sir  Peter  Teazle,  taken  leave  of  his 
disciples  with  the  words,  "Gentlemen,  I  leave  my 
character  in  your  hands."  On  the  basis  of  such  an 
exegesis  they  managed  to  raise  a  superstructure  of 
sentiment  which  had,  until  it  was.  touched,  some 
likeness  to  the  old  fabric,  but  which  a  breath  of 
air  would  dissipate,  and  unmask  the  ruins  within. 
Canon  Farrar's  Life  of  Christ  was  a  work  of  this 
description.  The  work  had  an  enormous  sale,  and 

274 


.    MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  author,  at  an  Oxford  dinner,  confided  somewhat 
ruefully  to  a  neighbor  that  all  he  got  for  it  himself 
was  not  more  than  three  hundred  pounds.  Another 
neighbor,  overhearing  this  remark,  murmured  to 
somebody  else,  "He  forgets  that  in  the  good  old 
days  the  same  job  was  done  for  thirty  pieces  of 
silver." 

A  criticism  of  the  clerical  rationalists,  not  dis- 
similar in  its  purport,  was  administered  to  Jowett 
by  a  certain  Russian  thinker,  who  knew  little  as  to 
Jowett's  opinions,  and  had  no  intention  of  rebuking 
them.  He  was  describing,  as  an  interesting  event, 
the  development  of  a  religion  in  Russia  which 
claimed  to  be  Christian  and  at  the  same  time  purely 
rational.  "Was  it  a  good  religion?"  asked  Jowett, 
with  a  somewhat  curt  civility.  "No,"  said  the  Rus- 
sian, reflectively,  "it  was  not  a  good  religion.  It 
was  schlim-schlam.  It  was  veesh-vash.  It  was  vot 
you  call  'Broad  Church.'" 

Mrs.  Ward,  who  may  fairly  be  described  as  the 
best  educated  woman  novelist  of  her  generation, 
endeavored,  in  the  disguise  of  her  hero,  to  found  a 
rationalized  Christianity  on  her  own  account,  and 
her  distinction  as  a  scholar  and  a  reasoner  makes 
this  experiment  interesting.  But  the  kind  of  Chris- 
tianity in  which  Robert  Elsmere  takes  refuge,  and 
of  which  he  officiates  as  the  self-appointed  primate, 
has  no  foundation  but  sentiment  and  certain  tours 
de  force  of  the  imagination.  As  soon  as  it  resolves 
itself  into  any  definite  propositions  with  regard  to 

275 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

objective  fact  it  is  evident  that  these  have  no  au- 
thority at  the  back  of  them.  Without  some  authority 
at  the  back  of  it,  unified  by  a  coherent  logic,  no  re- 
ligion can  guide  or  curb  mankind  or  provide  them 
with  any  hopes  that  the  enlightened  intellect  can 
accept.  It  is  precisely  this  sort  of  authority  which, 
for  those  who  can  accept  its  doctrines,  the  Church 
of  Rome  possesses,  and  is,  possessed  by  that  Church 
alone.  Here  is  the  argument  in  which  Is  Life  Worth 
Living?  culminated.  The  detailed  processes  by  which 
the  authority  and  the  teaching  of  Rome  have  de- 
veloped themselves  I  had  cited  in  Aristocracy  and 
Evolution  as  an  example  of  evolution  in  general. 
In  a  new  vglume,  Doctrine  and  Doctrinal  Disruption, 
I  dealt  with  it  once  again,  having  before  me  the 
example  of  what  was  then  being  called  "The  Great 
Anglican  Crisis."  That  this  book  was  not  written 
wholly  in  vain  I  have  sufficient  reason  to  know, 
for  a  variety  of  correspondents  assured  me  that  it 
put  into  clear  form  what  had  long  been  their  un- 
expressed convictions — certain  of  these  persons — 
serious  Anglicans — having  joined,  since  then,  the 
Church  of  Rome  in  consequence. 

But  the  thoughts  of  which  this  work  was  the 
result  were  not  appeased  by  its  publication.  They 
began  to  germinate  afresh  in  a  kindred,  but  in  a  dif- 
ferent form.  Doctrine  and  Doctrinal  Disruption  had 
for  its  immediate  subject  a  position  which  was  mainly 
insular — that  is  to  say,  the  position,  not  of  religion 
in  general,  but  of  the  formal  interpretations  of  Chris- 

276 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tianity  which  were  at  that  time  colliding  with  com- 
plete unbelief  in  England.  But  I  had  from  the  first 
— from  the  days  when  I  was  planning  The  New  Re- 
public onward — urged  that,  all  doctrines  pertaining 
to  particular  forms  of  Christianity  were  merely 
parts  of  a  wider  question — namely,  that  of  the  credi- 
bility of  supernatural  religion  of  any  kind,  and  that 
this  credibility  must  be  tested,  not  by  an  examina- 
tion of  religious  doctrines  as  such,  or  even  of  re- 
ligious emotion  in  the  purer  and  more  direct  mani- 
festations of  it,  but  in  the  indirect  effects  produced 
by  it  on  the  quality  of  life  generally.  Thus  merely 
in  the  capacity  of  a  thinker  I  felt  myself  presently 
impelled  to  a  reconsideration  of  the  contents  of  the 
life  of  the  individual;  and  this  impulsion  was  ag- 
gravated by  certain  domestic  dramas  which,  in  one 
way  or  another,  came  to  my  own  knowledge. 

In  describing  my  visit  to  Hungary  I  mentioned  a 
young  and  extremely  engaging  lady,  who  looked  as 
though  she  were  made  for  happiness,  but  whose  life, 
though  prematurely  ended,  had  had  time  since  then 
to  become  entangled  in  tragedy.  I  had  often,  since 
I  left  Hungary,  wondered  what  had  become  of  her; 
but  not  till  some  years  later  did  I  learn,  quite  ac- 
cidentally, what  her  story  and  her  end  had  been. 
I  was  told  few  details,  but  these  sufficed  to  enable 
me,  by  a  mere  use  of  the  imagination,  to  reconstruct 
it,  and  see  in  it  certain  general  meanings.  Of  this 
reconstructive  process  the  result  was  my  novel,  A 
Human  Document.  It  was  not,  indeed,  due  to  the 

19  277 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

stimulus  of  this  story  alone,  and  of  the  philosophic 
meanings  which  I  read  either  in  or  into  it.  It  was 
partly  due,  I  must  confess,  to  the  effects  which 
Hungarian  life  had  on  my  imagination  generally — 
effects  with  which  the  affairs  of  this  lady  had  nothing 
at  all  to  do — and  to  an  impulse  to  reproduce  these 
in  some  sort  of  literary  form.  The  castles,  the 
armor,  the  shepherds  playing  to  their  flocks,  the  wild 
gypsy  music,  the  obeisances  of  the  peasants,  the 
mysteries  of  the  great  forests — all  these  things,  like 
an  artist  when  he  paints  a  landscape,  I  longed  to 
reproduce  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  reproducing  them. 
Such  being  the  case,  the  heroine  of  my  novel  and  her 
experiences  became  unified  with  the  scenes  among 
which  I  had  actually  known  her. 

For  this  work,  as  a  picture  of  Hungary  and  Hun- 
garian life,  I  am  well  supported  in  claiming  one 
merit,  at  all  events.  Count  Deym,  who  at  that  time 
was  Austrian  Ambassador  in  London,  told  a  friend 
of  mine  that  my  picture  in  these  respects  could  not 
have  been  more  accurate  had  I  known  Hungary  for 
a  lifetime.  Of  its  merits  as  a  study  of  human  nature, 
and  an  essay  on  the  philosophy  of  life,  it  is  not  my 
province  to  speak.  I  merely  indicate  the  conclusion 
to  which,  as  an  attempt  at  philosophic  analysis,  it 
leads.  It  leads,  although  by  a  quite  different  route, 
to  the  same  conclusion  as  that  suggested  in  The  Old 
Order  Changes  and  in  A  Romance  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century — namely,  that  in  all  the  higher  forms  of 

affection  a  religious  belief  is  implicit,  which  connects 

278 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  lovers  with  the  All,  and  establishes  between 
them  and  It  some  conscious  and  veritable  communion. 

The  hero  gives  expression  to  this  conclusion  thus: 
On  the  evening  after  that  on  which  the  heroine  had 
made  herself  wholly  his  the  two  are  together  in  a 
boat  on  a  forest  lake.  She  does  not  regard  her  sur- 
render as  the  subject  of  ordinary  repentance.  On 
the  contrary,  she  regards  it  as  justified  by  the  cruelty 
and  neglect  of  her  husband,  and  yet  she  is  beset  by 
a  sense  that,  nevertheless,  she  may  have  outraged 
something  which  for  some  reason  or  other  she  ought 
to  have  held  sacred.  Her  companion  divines  this 
mood,  and  does  what  he  can  to  reassure  her.  "See," 
he  says,  "the  depths  above  us,  and  the  depths  re- 
flected under  us,  holding  endless  space  and  all  the 
endless  ages,  and  ourselves  like  a  ball  of  thistledown 
floating  between  two  eternities.  From  some  of  these 
stars  the  arrows  of  light  that  reach  us  started  on 
their  vibrating  way  before  Eve's  foot  was  in  Eden. 
Where  that  milky  light  is  new  universes  are  forming 
themselves.  The  book  of  their  genesis  yet  remains 
to  be  written.  Think  of  the  worlds  forming  them- 
selves. Think  of  the  worlds  shining,  and  the  dark- 
ened suns  and  systems  mute  in  the  night  of  time. 
To  us — to  us — what  does  it  all  say  more  than  the 
sea  says  to  the  rainbow  in  one  tossed  bubble  of  foam  ? 
And  yet  to  us  it  must  say  something,  seeing  that  we 
are  born  of  it,  and  how  can  we  be  out  of  tune  with 
it,  seeing  that  it  speaks  to  us  now?" 

The  moral  of  this  mysticism  is  that  no  affection  is 

279 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

complete  unless  it  is  in  harmony  with  some  cosmic 
will  which  takes  cognizance  of  the  doings  of  the 
individual,  and  gives  to  them  individually  some- 
thing of  its  own  eternity;  but  that,  in  so  far 
as  the  two  are  at  variance,  the  individual  must 
pay  the  price.  In  A  Human  Document  this  price 
is  paid  deliberately  by  the  man,  and  ultimately 
the  woman  shares  in  it,  like  a  character  in  a  Greek 
tragedy. 

This  novel  was  followed  by  another,  The  Heart  of 
Life,  which  was  more  or  less  constructed  on  the  same 
lines,  and  also  in  response  to  a  similar  dual  impulse. 
The  scenery  and  the  setting  were  those  of  my  own 
early  days  in  Devonshire.  The  home  of  the  prin- 
cipal actors,  as  there  depicted,  is  a  compound  of 
Glenthorne — I  have  mentioned  its  situation  already, 
on  the  seaward  borders  of  Exmoor — and  of  Den- 
bury.  Several  of  the  characters  are  clergymen  with 
whom  I  was  once  familiar.  Mixed  with  these  ele- 
ments are  certain  scenes  of  fashionable  life.  All 
these  accessories  are  almost  photographically  accu- 
rate; and  the  mere  pleasure  of  reproducing  them — • 
or,  as  boys  would  say,  the  mere  fun  of  reproducing 
them — was  one  of  the  motives  which  actuated  me  in 
writing  this  novel  and  rewriting  it — for  most  of  it 
was  written  over  and  over  again.  The  main  action, 
as  in  A  Human  Document,  turned  on  the  nature  of 
the  affections  and  the  pangs  of  unhappy  matri- 
mony, these  last  conducting  the  two  principal  per- 
sonages to  a  rest  in  which  the  heart  of  life,  self- 

280 


purified,  is  hardly  distinguishable  from  the  content 
of  a  Christian  child's  prayer. 

A  third  novel  followed.  This  novel  was  The  In- 
dividualist, of  which  the  underlying  subject  was  still 
the  relation  of  religion  to  life,  but  the  subject  was 
handled  in  a  spirit  less  of  emotion  than  of  pure  social 
comedy.  It  was  suggested  by  the  movement,  then 
beginning  to  effervesce,  in  favor  of  the  rights  of 
women,  and  by  the  semi-Socialist  hysteria  with 
which  some  of  its  leaders  associated  it,  and  in  which 
many  of  them  thought  that  they  had  discovered  the 
foundations  of  a  new  faith.  The  most  prominent 
character,  though  she  is  not  in  the  ordinary  sense 
the  heroine,  is  Mrs.  Norham,  an  ornament  of  intel- 
lectual Bloomsbury.  Having  certain  independent 
means,  she  is  far  from  being  an  opponent  of  private 
property  as  such.  Her  bete  noire  is  the  fashionable 
or  aristocratic  classes,  these  being  the  true  Anti- 
christ; and  she  has  founded  a  church  whose  main 
spiritual  mission  is  to  instigate  an  6lite  of  the  obscure 
and  earnest  to  despise  them.  By  and  by  she  meets 
some  members  of  this  despicable  class  herself. 
Among  them  is  a  Tory  Prime  Minister,  who  joins 
with  his  sister,  an  exceedingly  fine  lady,  in  expressing 
a  respectful  and  profound  admiration  of  her  intel- 
lect. Mrs.  Norham's  philosophy  of  social  religion 
hereupon  undergoes  such  an  appreciable  change 
that  she  ultimately  finds  salvation  in  winding  wool 
for  a  peeress,  the  only  surviving  thorns  in  her  original 
crown  of  martyrdom  being  the  loss  of  some  money 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

in  a  company  formed  for  the  production  of  a  per- 
petual motion,  and  her  discovery  that  a  certain 
dinner  party  to  which  she  has  been  asked  is"  not 
sufficiently  fashionable.  This  book,  though  in  many 
respects  a  mere  comedy  of  manners  and  characters 
— among  the  characters  was  a  South  African  mil- 
lionaire and  his  wife — was  under  the  surface  per- 
meated by  a  serious  meaing,  being  in  effect  an  ex- 
hibition of  the  "fantastic  tricks"  which  those  who 
reject  the  supernatural  are  driven  to  play  in  their 
attempts  to  provide  the  world  with  a  substitute. 

But  every  general  event  must  have  a  general 
cause,  for  which  individuals  are  not  alone  respon- 
sible; and  the  fantastic  tricks  of  the  people  who  try 
to  make  religions  for  themselves  cannot  be  due  merely 
to  the  idiosyncrasies  of  exceptionally  foolish  persons. 
There  must  be  causes  at  the  back  of  them  of  a  deeper 
and  a  wider  kind.  The  first  of  these  causes  is  ob- 
viously the  fact  that,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
multitudes  who  know  nothing  of  one  another  are 
independently  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  super- 
naturalism,  which  was  once  accepted  without  ques- 
tion as  the  main  content  or  substratum  of  human 
life,  rests  on  postulates  which  to  them  are  no  longer 
credible.  Why  is  this  the  case  to-day,  when  it  was 
not  the  case  yesterday?  Of  these  necessary  postu- 
lates two  are  the  same  for  all  men — namely,  an  in- 
dividual life  which  survives,  the  individual  body, 
an4  the  moral  responsibility  of  the  individual,  or 
his  possession  of  a  free  will.  A  third  postulate, 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which  is  the  same  for  all  orthodox  Christians,  is  the 
miraculous  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  whatever  the 
precise  nature  of  this  inspiration  may  be.  Of  these 
three  postulates  the  last  has  been  discredited  all 
over  the  world  by  biblical  criticism  and  scientific 
comparisons  of  one  religion  with  another.  The 
first  and  the  second  have  been  discredited  by  ad- 
vances in  the  science  of  biological  physics  which 
has,  with  increasing  precision,  exhibited  human  life 
and  thought  as  mere  functions  of  the  physical  or- 
ganism, the  organism  itself  being,  in  turn,  a  part  of 
the  cosmic  process.  If  this  be  the  case,  what 
religious  significance  can  attach  to  the  individual  as 
such?  His  thoughts,  his  emotions,  his  actions,  are 
no  more  his  own  than  the  action  of  a  windmill's 
sails  or  the  antics  of  scraps  of  paper  gyrating  at  a 
windy  corner.1  The  first  license  to  men  to  construct 

1  In  an  early  chapter  of  The  Veil  of  the  Temple  one  of  the  characters 
describes  the  situation  as  follows: 

"  (For  a  long  time  after  the  death  of  Hegel)  these  separate  living 
species  seemed  radically  separated  from  one  another,  or  connected 
only  as  contrivances  of  the  same  deity.  Thus  the  different  lands  of 
life — in  especial  the  life  of  man — seemed  to  stand  up  alone  above 
the  waters  of  science,  like  island  peaks  above  the  sea,  the  objects 
of  a  separate  knowledge.  But  all  this  while  the  waters  of  science 
were  rising  slowly  like  a  flood,  and  were  signalizing  their  rise  by 
engulfing  from  time  to  time  some  stake  or  landmark  that  a  moment 
before  was  protruding  from  them,  or  by  suddenly  pouring  over  a 
barrier  and  submerging  some  new  area.  No  doubt  even  by  this 
process  many  people  were  frightened,  but  there  was  no  more  general 
panic  than  there  was  in  the  days  of  Noah.  Men  from  their  superior 
status  watched  the  tide  in  security.  They  ate,  they  drank  at  their 
old  sacramental  altars.  They  were  married  before  them  and  given 
in  marriage.  But  one  fine  day — as  we  look  back  on  it  now  it  seems 
the  work  of  a  moment — something  happened  which,  as  I  often 

283 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

a  religion  is  a  license  given  them  by  reason  to  admit 
the  proposition  that  the  individual  will  is  free.  The 
primary  obstacle  to  religious  belief  to-day  is  the 
difficulty  of  finding  in  this  universe  a  rational  place 
for  freedom — a  "voluntas  avolsa  fatis."  How  is  this 
obstacle  to  be  surmounted? 

To  this  question  I  attempted  an  answer  in  a  new 
philosophical  book,  Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine, 
of  which  the  general  contention  is  as  follows.  If 
we  trust  solely  to  science  and  objective  evidence,  the 
difficulty  in  question  is  insuperable.  There  is  no 
place  for  individual  freedom  in  the  universe,  and 
apologists  who  attempt  to  find  one  are  no  better 
than  clowns  tumbling  in  the  dust  of  a  circus.  If 
they  try  to  smuggle  it  in  through  some  chink  in  the 
mcenia  mundi,  these  ageless  walls  are  impregnable, 
or  if  here  and  there  some  semblance  of  a  gate  pre- 
sents itself,  each  gate  is  guarded,  like  Eden,  by 
science  with  its  flaming  swords. 

amused  myself  by  thinking,  would  have  been  for  a  transhuman 
spectator  the  finest  stage  effect  in  the  world.  The  gradual  rise  of 
the  waters  gave  place  to  a  cataclysm.  The  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  were  broken  up  when  Darwin  struck  the  rock,  and  an  enormous 
wave  washed  over  the  body  of  man,  covering  him  up  to  his  chin, 
leaving  only  his  head  visible,  while  his  limbs  jostled  below  against 
the  carcasses  of  the  drowned  animals.  His  head,  however,  was 
visible  still,  and  in  his  head  was  his  mind — that  mind  antecedent  to 
the  universe — that  redoubtable,  separate  entity — staring  out  of  his 
eyes  over  the  deluge,  like  a  sailor  on  a  sinking  ship.  Then  came  one 
crisis  more.  The  waters  rose  an  inch  or  two  higher,  and  all  at  once, 
like  a  sponge,  the  substance  of  his  head  had  begun  to  suck  them  up 
— suck  them  up  into  the  very  home  of  life  and  thought;  and  the 
mind,  sodden  all  through,  was  presently  below  the  surface,  sharing 
the  doom  of  limpets,  and  weeds,  and  worlds." 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  argument  of  this  book,  then,  is  in  the  main 
negative.  But  in  dealing  with  the  problem  thus  it 
is  not  negative  in  its  tendency,  for  it  carries  the 
reader  to  the  verge  of  the  only  possible  solution. 
For  pure  reason,  as  enlightened  by  modern  knowl- 
edge, human  freedom  is  unthinkable,  and  yet  for 
any  religion  by  which  the  pure  reason  and  the  prac- 
tical reason  can  be  satisfied  the  first  necessity  is 
that  men  should  accept  such  freedom  as  a  fact. 
But  this  argument  does  not  apply  to  the  belief  in 
human  freedom  only.  It  applies  to  all  the  primary 
conceptions  which  men  assume,  and  are  bound  to 
assume,  in  order  to  make  life  practicable.  If  we 
follow  pure  reason  far  enough — if  we  follow  it  as  far 
as  it  will  go — not  only  freedom  is  unthinkable,  but 
so  are  other  things  as  well.  Space  is  unthinkable, 
time  is  unthinkable,  and  so  (as  Herbert  Spencer 
elaborately  argued)  is  motion.  In  each  of  these  is 
involved  some  self-contradiction,  some  gap  which 
reason  cannot  span;  and  yet,  as  Kant  said,  unless 
we  do  assume  them,  rational  action,  and  even 
thought  itself,  are  impossible.  If  the  difficulty, 
then,  of  conceiving  human  freedom  is  the  only  diffi- 
culty which  religious  belief  encounters,  we  may 
trust  that  in  time  such  belief  will  reassert  itself, 
and  a  definite  religion  of  some  sort  acquire  new  life 
along  with  it. 

But  religion  does  not  logically  depend  on  the 
postulate  of  freedom  alone.  Moral  freedom,  in  a 
religious  sense,  requires,  not  the  postulate  of  in- 

285 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

dividual  freedom  only,  but  also  of  a  Supreme  or 
Cosmic  Being,  to  whose  will  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
individual  will  to  attune  itself,  and  it  further  re- 
quires the  postulate  that  this  Being  is  good  in  respect 
of  its  relations  to  all  individuals  equally — that  it 
represents,  in  short,  a  multitude  of  individual  benev- 
olences. Nor  does  the  matter  end  here.  Any 
definite  religion  postulates  some  recognized  means 
by  which  the  will  of  this  Being  may  be  made  known. 
I  had  hardly  completed  Religion  as  a  Credible  Doc- 
trine before  questions  such  as  these,  which  there 
had  been  hardly  touched,  began  to  impress  them- 
selves with  new  emphasis  on  my  mind.  My  desire 
was  to  take  these  questions  in  combination,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  this  could  best  be  done  by  adopt- 
ing a  method  less  formal  than  that  which  I  had  just 
pursued.  I  returned  accordingly  to  the  methods  of 
The  New  Republic. 

In  this  new  work,  called  The  Veil  of  the  Temple,  the 
action  begins  at  a  party  in  a  great  London  house, 
where  Rupert  Glanville,  a  politician  who  has  just 
returned  from  the  East,  invites  some  friends  to  cut 
their  London  dissipations  short  and  pay  him  a  visit 
at  a  curious  marine  residence  which  a  Protestant 
bishop,  his  ancestor,  had  constructed  in  classical 
taste  on  the  remotest  coast  of  Ireland.  A  party  is 
got  together,  including  a  bishop  of  to-day  and  two 
ornaments  of  the  Jockey  Club,  together  with  some 
fashionable  ladies  and  a  Hegelian  philosopher 
educated  at  Glasgow  and  Oxford. 

286 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  intellectual  argument  of  the  book  takes  up 
the  threads  where  Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine 
dropped  them.  It  begins  at  the  dinner  table,  where 
a  well-known  case  of  cheating  at  cards  is  discussed, 
and  the  issue  is  raised  of  whether,  or  how  far,  a  rich 
man  who  cheats  at  cards  is  the  master  of  his  own 
actions  or  the  pathological  victim  of  kleptomania. 
One  of  the  lights  of  the  Jockey  Club  is  indignant  at 
the  idea  that  the  matter  can  be  open  to  doubt. 
"If  a  gentleman,"  he  says,  "is  not  free  to  abstain 
from  cheating,  what  would  become  of  the  turf? 
Eh,  bishop — what  would  become  of  the  Church? 
What  would  become  of  anything?"  Thus  the  ques- 
tion of  free  will  is  once  again  in  the  air,  and  the 
more  serious  of  the  guests,  as  soon  as  the  others 
depart,  set  themselves  to  discuss  both  this  and  other 
questions  .kindred  to  it. 

Of  such  other  questions  the  most  obvious  is  this: 
"How  far  do  educated  persons,  who  are  nominally 
'professing  Christians,'  really  believe  in  doctrines  of 
Christian  orthodoxy,  and  more  particularly  in  the 
authority  and  supernatural  inspiration  of  the  Bible?" 
Most  of  them  are  obliged  to  confess  that  at  best  they 
are  in  a  state  of  doubt.  On  Sunday  three  Anglican 
clergymen  are  imported  on  a  steam  launch  from  a 
watering  place  some  ten  miles  off,  where  they  are 
attending  a  clerical  Congress— an  Evangelical,  a 
Broad  Churchman,  and  a  Ritualist;  and  they  ad- 
minister to  the  company  three  competitive  ser- 
mons. 

287 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

These  performances  leave  confusion  worse  con- 
founded; and  the  guests  during  the  following  days 
set  themselves  to  pick  their  own  beliefs  to  pieces. 
At  last  they  come  back  to  the  question  of  free  will, 
especially  as  related  to  science  and  what  is  called 
scientific  materialism.  Then  the  question  arises  of 
"What  do  we  mean  by  matter?"  and  then  the 
question  of  the  possible  goodness  of  a  God  who,  if 
he  is  really  the  power  behind  evolution,  is  con- 
stantly sacrificing  the  unit  to  the  development  of 
the  race  or  species.  This  last  difficulty  is  expressed 
by  one  of  the  disputants  in  a  poem  which  had  been 
written  many  years  ago,  and  which,  by  request  of 
the  company,  he  recites.  In  this  poem  the  man,  who 
is  vowed  to  abandon  every  belief  for  which  science 
can  make  no  room,  is  represented  by  a  wanderer 
who  finds  himself  at  last  conducted  to  a  bare  region 
where  no  living  thing  is  discernible,  but  one  shining 
apparition  standing  on  the  brink  of  a  promontory 
which  juts  into  a  sailless  sea.  He  approaches,  and 
addresses  it  thus: 

"Oh,  angel  of  the  heavenly  glow, 

Behold  I  take  thine  hands  and  kneel. 
But  what  is  this?    Thy  brows  are  snow, 
Thy  hands  are  stone,  thy  wings  are  steel. 

"The  radiant  pureness  of  thy  face 
Has  not  the  peace  of  Paradise, 
Those  wings  within  the  all-holy  place 
Were  never  folded  o'er  thine  eyes. 
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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

"And  in  thine  eyes  I  see  no  b\iss, 

Nor  even  the  tenderness  of  tears. 
I  see  the  blueness  of  the  abyss, 
I  see  the  icebergs  and  the  spheres. 

"Angel  whose  hand  is  cold  in  mine, 

Whose  seaward  eyes  are  not  for  me, 
Why  do  I  cry  for  wings  like  thine? 
I  would  leave  all  and  follow  thee." 

To   this   the    apparition,   who  is  the   Spirit   of 
Science,  replies: 

"Ah,  rash  one,  pause  and  learn  my  name. 
^.  know  not  love,  nor  hate,  nor  ruth. 
I  am  that  heart  of  frost  and  flame 
That  knows  but  one  desire — the  Truth. 

"Thou  shalt  indeed  be  lifted  up 

On  wings  like  mine,  'twixt  seas  and  sky. 
But  can'st  thou  drink  with  me  my  cup, 
And  can'st  thou  be  baptized  as  I? 

"The  cup  I  drink  of  does  but  rouse 

The  thirst  it  slakes  not,  like  the  sea; 
And  lo,  my  own  baptismal  brows 
Must  be  their  own  Gethsemane. 

"Across  the  paths  where  I  must  go 
The  shuttles  of  the  lightning  fly 
From  pole  to  pole,  and  strike,  nor  know 
If  Christs  and  kingdoms  live  or  die. 

"How  wilt  thou  bear  the  worlds  of  fire, 

The  worlds  of  snow,  or  dare  to  mark 
On  each  some  ratlike  race  expire 
That  cannot  leave  its  foundering  bark? 
289 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

"Oh,  you,  for  whom  my  robes  are  bright, 
For  whom  my  clear  eyes  in  the  gloom 
Are  lamps — you  who  would  share  my  flight, 
Be  warned  in  time.    I  know  my  doom. 

"I  shall  become  the  painless  pain, 

The  soundless  sound,  as,  deaf  and  dumb, 
The  whole  creation  strives  in  vain 
To  sing  the  song  that  will  not  come. 

"Till  maimed  and  weary,  burnt  and  blind, 

I  am  made  one  with  God,  and  feel 
The  tumult  of  the  mindless  mind 
Torn  on  its  own  eternal  wheel." 

The  suppliant  replies  that  he  knows  from  his  own 
experience  what  such  a  counsel  means,  but  has 
found  it  himself  to  be  no  longer  practicable.  There 
was  a  time,  he  says,  when  he  found  the  perfect  peace 
in  kneeling  before  the  Christian  altar,  but  what  is  the 
Eucharist  for  him  who  can  no  longer  believe  in  it? 
He  still  is  prepared  to  follow  the  Spirit  of  Truth  at 
all  costs.  "For  me,"  he  says: 

"For  me  the  kneeling  knees  are  vain, 

In  vain  for  me  the  sacred  dew. 
I  will  not  drink  that  wine  again 
Unless  with  thee  I  drink  it  new. 

/'Give  me  thy  wings,  thy  wings  of  steel, 

And  I  with  thee  will  cleave  the  skies, 
And  broken  on  the  eternal  wheel 
My  God  may  take  his  sacrifice." 

"And  yet,"  he  says  in  conclusion,  "Truth,  to  those 
who  follow  it,  may  at  last  bring  its  own  reward." 

290 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

"Though  storms  may  blow,  though  waves  may  roar, 

It  may  be,  ere  the  day  is  done, 
Mine  eyes  shall  turn  to  thine  once  more, 
And  learn  that  thine  and  his  are  one." 

The  Veil  of  the  Temple  winds  up,  in  short,  with  the 
indication  that,  if  both  are  completely  thought  out, 
the  gospel  of  Faith  is  no  more  irrational  than  the 
gospel  of  scientific  negation,  and  that  the  former  can 
be  a  guide  to  action,  whereas,  if  thought  out  com- 
pletely, this  is  precisely  what  the  latter  cannot  be. 

The  Reconstruction  of  Belief  is  a  synthesis  of  the 
main  arguments  urged  or  suggested  in  these  two  pre- 
ceding volumes.  The  necessity  of  religious  belief 
as  a  practical  basis  of  civilization  is  restated. 
The  absurdity  of  all  current  attempts  on  the  part  of 
clerical  apologists  to  revindicate  it  by  scientific 
reason  is  set  forth  in  detail.  The  true  vindication 
is  shown  to  reside  in  the  fact  that  religious  belief 
works,  and  that  scientific  negation  does  not  work, 
and  that  here  we  have  the  practical  test  by  which 
the  validity  of  the  former  is  to  be  established, 
though  the  process  by  which  this  fact  will  be  appre- 
hended by  the  modern  world  may  be  slow. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FROM  THE   HIGHLANDS   TO   NEW  YORK 

Summer  on  the  Borders  of  Caithness — A  Two  Months'  Yachting 
Cruise — The  Orkneys  and  the  Outer  Hebrides — An  Unexpected 
Political  Summons. 

DURING  the  five  years  occupied  in  elaborating 
these   philosophical   works  I   enjoyed   two 
intervals  of  relaxation,  which  in  the  land- 
scape  of   memory   detach   themselves   from   other 
kindred  experiences,  and  one  of  which — the  second — 
had  a  quite  unexpected  ending. 

The  first  was  indirectly  connected  with  the  Coro- 
nation of  King  Edward.  On  a  certain  evening,  while 
the  event  was  impending,  I  found  myself  sitting  at 
dinner  by  a  friend,  Lady  Amherst  (of  Montreal), 
who  told  me  that  she  and  Lord  Amherst  were  shortly 
going  to  a  shooting  lodge  which  was  close  to  the 
borders  of  Caithness,  and  which  they  rented  from 
the  Duke  of  Sutherland.  For  some  months  past 
Lady  Amherst  had  been  unwell,  and  her  doctor  had 
urged  her  to  avoid  the  crowds  of  London,  for  which 
reason  she  and  her  husband  had  determined  to  find 
quiet  in  the  north.  I  told  her  I  thought  she  was  a 
very  enviable  woman,  all  unusual  crowds  being  to 
myself  detestable.  "If  you  think  that,"  she  said, 
"why  don't  you  come  with  us?  A  few  others  will 

292 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

be  there,  so  we  shall  not  be  quite  alone."  I  accepted 
the  invitation  with  delight.  I  said  good-by  to  Lon- 
don on  the  earliest  day  possible.  In  a  train  which 
was  almost  empty  I  traveled  much  at  my  ease  from 
King's  Cross  Station  to  Brora.  Not  a  tourist  was 
to  be  seen  anywhere.  Except  for  a  few  farmers,  all 
the  Highland  platforms  were  empty.  I  felt  like  a 
disembodied  spirit  when  I  found  myself  at  last  in 
a  land  of  short,  transparent  nights  which  hardly 
divided  one  day  from  another.  Uppat,  Lord  Am- 
herst's  lodge,  was  one  of  the  roomiest  on  the  whole 
Sutherland  property.  Parts  of  it  were  old.  It  had 
once  been  a  small  laird's  castle.  Round  it  were 
woods  from  which  came  the  noise  of  a  salmon  river. 
Among  the  woods  were  walled  plots  of  pasture,  and 
beyond  the  woods  were  the  loneliest  of  all  lonely 
mountains.  In  the  kitchen  was  a  French  chef,  and 
when  on  my  arrival  I  found  Lady  Amherst  in  the 
porch,  her  homespun  toilet  showed  that  France 
produced  artists  other  than  French  cooks.  To  elude 
the  world  without  eluding  its  ornaments — what 
more  could  be  prayed  for  by  a  mind  desiring  rest? 
Uppat,  indeed,  in  June  and  July  was  like  a  land 

Where  all  trouble  seems 

Dead  winds,  and  spent  waves  riot 
In  doubtful  dreams  of  dreams. 

Lord  Amherst,  as  a  rule,  spent  most  of  the  day 
fishing.  Lady  Amherst,  I,  and  two  other  visitors 
very  often  bicycled.  On  other  occasions  we  all  made 

20  293 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

our  way  to  purple  fastnesses,  and  lunched  where 
birches  lifted  their  gleaming  stems.  The  only  move- 
ments discoverable  between  earth  and  sky  were  the 
sailing  wings  of  eagles,  and  our  own  activities  below, 
as  we  applied  mayonnaise  sauce,  yellower  than  any 
primrose,  to  a  sea  trout  or  a  lobster.  We  dined  at 
nearly  nine  o'clock  by  a  strange,  white  daylight; 
and  in  the  outer  quiet  there  was  very  often  discernible 
a  movement  of  stags'  antlers  above  the  wall  of  a  near 
orchard.  We  read  the  newspapers  till  very  nearly 
midnight  without  lamps  or  candles.  We  watched 
the  blush  of  sunset,  visible,  like  a  dying  bonfire, 
through  a  gap  in  the  Caithness  mountains,  and  this 
had  not  faded  completely  till  it  seemed  as  though 
someone  had  lighted  beyond  a  neighboring  ridge 
a  bonfire  of  saffron — the  faint  beginning  of  sunrise. 
No  retreat  could  have  been  a  retreat  more  complete 
than  this. 

Another  retreat  in  the  north  was  vouchsafed  to 
me  some  years  later.  I  was  lunching  with  my  friends, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Saxton  Noble,  in  London,  and  they 
told  me  that,  instead  of  taking,  as  had  been  their 
custom,  a  country  house  for  the  autumn,  they  had 
taken  a  yacht  of  about  five  hundred  tons,  and  were 
going  to  spend  their  time  in  a  leisurely  cruise  round 
the  western  coasts  of  Scotland.  I  mentioned  to 
them  that  I  had  just  been  reading  a  very  interesting 
description  of  Noltland,  a  curious  castle  in  the  re- 
motest island  of  the  Orkneys.  We  talked  of  this, 
which  apparently  was  a  very  remarkable  structure, 

294 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

containing  the  most  magnificent  newel  staircase  in 
Scotland.  Suddenly  Mrs.  Noble  said,  "Why  won't 
you  join  us?"  My  own  plans  for  the  autumn  had 
been  mapped  out  already,  and  I  did  not  at  first  take 
her  suggestion  seriously.  I  laughed  and  said,  "Yes, 
I'll  come  if  you  will  go  as  far  as  Noltland."  Both  she 
and  her  husband  at  once  answered:  "Yes.  We 
promise  to  go  to  Noltland.  Let  us  take  your  coming 
as  settled." 

Accordingly,  toward  the  end  of  July  we  left 
London  by  the  night  mail  for  Greenock,  where  the 
yacht  would  be  found  waiting  for  us.  Next  morning, 
in  the  freshness  of  a  salt  breeze,  we  were  transferring 
ourselves  from  Greenock  pier  to  a  trim-looking  motor 
boat,  which  was  rising  and  falling  on  the  swish  of 
unquiet  waters,  while  the  yacht — a  small  streak  of 
whiteness — was  pointed  out  to  us  lying  half  a  mile 
away.  Besides  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Noble,  our  party  con- 
sisted of  their  two  children,  Miss  Helen  Marhall,  and 
myself.  I  had  with  me  a  Swiss  servant ;  Mrs.  Noble 
had  a  French  maid,  together  with  her  London  butler, 
transformed  for  the  time  into  a  mariner  by  gilt  but- 
tons and  a  nautical  serge  suit,  and  the  cook  was  an 
accomplished  chef  who  had  once  been  in  the  service 
of  the  fastidious  Madame  de  Falbe.  We  were  all  of 
us  good  sailors,  so  for  our  prospective  comfort  every- 
thing augured  well.  Our  first  few  days  were  spent 
on  the  calm  waters  of  Loch  Fyne.  We  then  went 
southward,  and,  doubling  the  Mull  of  Cantyre,  had 
some  taste  of  the  turbulence  of  the  open  sea.  We 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

then  turned  north,  and,  protected  by  the  outer 
islands,  followed  the  mainland  placidly  until  we  ap- 
proached Cape  Wrath. 

A  large  part  of  our  time  was  spent  in  a  succession 
of  lochs.  On  our  way  to  Oban,  and  in  its  harbor,  we 
saw  several  large  yachts;  but,  except  for  occasional 
fishing  smacks,  after  Oban  the  sea  became  more  and 
more  deserted.  Entering  one  loch  after  another  in 
the  summer  evenings,  and  seeing  no  human  habita- 
tions but  crofters'  cottages,  which,  except  for  their 
wreaths  of  smoke,  were  hardly  distinguishable  from 
the  heather,  and  hearing  no  sound  at  nightfall,  when 
our  own  engines  were  still,  except  the  distant  dipping 
of  some  solitary  pair  of  oars,  we  felt  as  though  we 
had  reached  the  beginnings  of  civilization,  or  the 
ends  of  it.  This  was  specially  true  of  Loch  Laxford 
— the  last  of  such  inland  shelters  lying  south  of  Cape 
Wrath — Cape  Wrath,  the  lightning  of  whose  lanterns' 
and  the  boom  of  whose  great  foghorns  send  out 
warnings  to  those  on  "seas  full  of  wonder  and  peril," 
which  Swinburne 's  verse  commemorates. 

Of  the  peril  of  these  seas  our  captain  had  often 
spoken,  and  when,  leaving  the  stillness  of  Loch 
Laxford,  we  renewed  our  northward  journey,  we 
soon  perceived  that  his  language  was  not  exaggerated. 
From  the  mouth  of  Loch  Laxford  to  Cape  Wrath  the 
whole  coast  might  have  represented  to  Dante  the 
scowling  ramparts  of  hell.  Of  anything  in  the  nature 
of  a  beach  no  trace  was  discernible.  The  huge  cliffs, 
rising  sheer  from  the  sea,  leaned  not  inward,  but 

296 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

outward,  and  ceaseless  waves  were  breaking  in  spouts 
of  foam  against  them.  The  yacht  began  to  roll  and 
pitch,  so  that  though  none  of  us  were  sick  except 
Mrs.  Noble's  maid,  we  could  very  few  of  us  stand. 
We  managed,  however,  to  identify  the  lighthouse 
and  megaphone  of  Cape  Wrath  just  peeping  out  of 
the  cliffs,  as  though  they  were  themselves  afraid  to 
meet  the  full  violence  of  a  storm.  The  skill  of  the 
cook,  however,  and  the  intrepidity  of  hunger  en- 
abled us  to  eat  our  luncheon.  We  then  lay  down  in 
our  several  cabins  and  slept,  till  steps  on  deck  and  a 
number  of  voices  woke  us.  We  were  soon  rolling 
more  disagreeably  than  ever.  But  this  added  an- 
noyance did  not  last  for  long.  Something  or  other 
happened.  The  motion  of  the  vessel  became  easier, 
and  at  last,  peeping  into  my  cabin,  Saxton  Noble 
announced  that  we  were  back  again  in  Loch  Laxford. 
The  megaphones  of  Cape  Wrath  had  announced 
that  a  fog  was  coming.  The  captain  had  fled  before 
it,  and  we  dined  that  night  at  a  table  as  stationary 
and  steady  as  any  in  any  hotel  in  Glasgow.  Next 
day  the  weather  was  clear.  We  rounded  the  terrible 
headland,  and  were  floating  at  ease  that  evening 
on  the  glassy  surface  of  Loch  Erribol.  In  this  half- 
sylvan  seclusion  we  rested  for  several  days.  Thence 
some  eight  hours  of  steaming  brought  us  to  the  road- 
stead of  Thurso.  For  several  days  we  lay  there 
while  the  yacht  rocked  uneasily,  and  most  of  our 
time  was  spent  in  expeditions  on  dry  land.  In  some 
ways  Thurso  was  curious.  On  the  one  hand,  the 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

shops  were  excellent.  They  might  have  been  those 
of  a  country  town  near  London.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  older  houses  were,  as  a  protection  against  storms, 
roofed  with  ponderous  slabs  hardly  smaller  than 
gravestones.  At  one  end  of  the  town  was  Thurso 
Castle,  the  seat  of  Sir  Tollemache  Sinclair,  its  walls 
rising  out  of  the  water.  At  the  back  of  it  was  a  small 
wood — the  only  wood  in  Caithness.  I  knew  Sir 
Tollemache  Sinclair  well,  but  unfortunately  he  was 
not  at  home.  He  was  what  is  called  "a  character." 
He  had  strong  literary  tastes,  and  firmly  believed 
that  he  understood  the  art  of  French  versification 
better  than  Victor  Hugo.  The  last  time  I  had  seen 
him  was  at  a  hotel  in  Paris.  He  was  on  that  oc- 
casion in  a  mood  of  great  complacency,  having  just 
been  spending  an  hour  with  Victor  Hugo  at  luncheon. 
I  asked  him  if,  with  regard  to  French  versification, 
Victor  Hugo  agreed  with  him.  "No,"  he  replied, 
honestly,  "I  can't  say  that  he  did;  but  he  asked  me 
to  lunch  again  with  him  whenever  I  should  be  next 
in  Paris." 

As  soon  as  the  weather  was  inviting  enough  we 
turned  our  bows  toward  the  Orkneys,  dimly  visible 
on  the  horizon  some  forty  miles  away,  and  found 
ourselves,  on  a  windless  evening,  entering  Scapa 
Flow.  We  little  thought  that  those  then  little 
visited  waters  would  one  day  witness  the  making 
of  British  and  German  history.  Scapa  Flow  is  a 
miniature  Mediterranean,  with  the  mainland  of  the 
Orkneys  on  one  side  and  the  island  of  Hoy  on  the 

298 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

other.  At  the  northeastern  end  of  it,  some  ten  miles 
away,  a  high,  red  building — a  lonely  tower — was 
visible.  This  was  the  tower  of  the  great  cathedral 
of  Kirkwall.  Approaching  the  Orkneys  from  Thurso 
the  first  things  that  struck  us  were  certain  great 
structures  crowning  the  mounded  hills.  These,  we 
discovered  afterward  were  so  many  great  farm- 
steadings,  protected  from  the  wind  by  cinctures  of 
high  walls,  many  of  the  Orcadian  holdings  being  at 
once  rich  and  extensive,  and  commanding  very 
high  rentals. 

Kirkwall,  in  respect  of  its  shops,  surprised  us  even 
more  than  Thurso.  There  were  chemists,  grocers, 
booksellers,  whose  windows  would  hardly  have  been 
out  of  place  at  Brighton;  but  haunting  suggestions 
of  the  old,  the  remote,  the  wild,  were  tingling  in  the 
air  everywhere.  The  huge  tentacles  of  the  kraken 
might  have  lifted  themselves  beyond  Kirkwall  har- 
bor. The  beautiful  palace  of  the  old  Earls  of 
Orkney  would  have  been  still  habitable  if  only  some 
local  body  early  in  the  nineteenth  century  had  not 
stolen  its  slates  for  the  purpose  of  roofing  some 
schoolhouse.  Tankerness  House,  entered  by  a  forti- 
fied gate,  and  built  round  a  small  court,  can  have 
hardly  changed  since  the  days  of  Brenda  and  Minna 
Troyle.  In  the  nave  of  the  great  cathedral,  which 
took  four  centuries  in  building,  one  would  not  have 
been  surprised  at  meeting  Magnus  Troyle  or  Norna. 
The  nave  is  full  of  the  records  of  old  Orcadian 
notables.  These  are  not,  however,  for  the  most 

299 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

part,  attached  to  the  walls  as  tablets.  They  are 
attached  to  the  pillars  by  extended  iron  rods,  from 
which  they  hang  like  the  swaying  signs  of  inns.  A 
country  without  railways  and  without  coal — how 
peaceful  England  might  be  if  only  it  were  not  for 
these ! 

But  our  peace  in  a  physical  sense  was  very  abruptly 
broken  when  we  quitted  Kirkwall  en  route  for  the 
Holy  Grail  of  our  pilgrimage,  Noltland  Castle,  which 
secludes  itself  on  the  far-off  island  of  Westray,  and, 
leaving  the  quiet  of  Scapa  Flow  behind  us,  encoun- 
tered once  more  the  tumults  of  the  Pentland  Firth. 
But  these  were  nothing  in  comparison  with  those 
that  met  us  as  soon  as  we  had  rounded  the  south- 
west corner  of  Hoy.  The  hills  of  Hoy,  so  far  as  we 
had  yet  seen  them,  were  of  no  very  great  magnitude ; 
but  now,  as  we  went  northward,  they  showed  them- 
selves as  a  line  of  tremendous  precipices,  which  rose 
from  the  booming  waves  to  an  altitude  of  twelve 
hundred  feet.  This  monstrous  wall  ended  where 
a  narrow  and  mysterious  fiord  separates  Hoy  from 
a  low-hilled  island  north  of  it.  This  island  gave 
place  to  another,  and  at  last,  late  in  the  day,  our 
captain  told  us  that  we  were  passing  the  outer  shore 
of  Westray.  Consulting  our  maps,  and  pointing  to 
the  mouth  of  some  new  fiord,  we  asked  him  if  it 
would  not  afford  us  a  short  cut  to  our  destination. 
He  told  us  that  it  was  full  of  hidden  rocks  and  sand- 
banks, and  called  our  attention  to  some  enigmatic 
object  which  rose  in  jmidchannel  like  a  deer's  horns 

300 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

from  the  sea.  "There,"  he  said,  "are  the  masts  of 
an  Icelandic  steamer  which  attempted  two  years 
ago  to  make  that  passage,  and  was  lost.  To  reach 
Westray  in  safety  we  must  double  its  farthest 
promontory."  An  hour  or  two  later  this  feat  was 
accomplished.  We  were  once  more  in  smooth 
water,  and  found  ourselves  quietly  floating  toward 
something  like  a  dwarf  pier  and  one  or  two  small 
white  houses.  By  now  it  was  time  for  dinner,  and 
having  dined  in  a  saloon  that  was  hung  with  jade- 
green  silk,  we  leaned  over  the  bulwarks  and  contem- 
plated the  remote  scene  before  us.  We  could  just 
discern  by  the  pier  some  small  tramp  steamer  re- 
posing. In  the  little  white  houses  one  or  two  lights 
twinkled,  and  presently,  not  far  off,  we  distinguished 
a  mouse-colored  something,  the  upper  outlines  of 
which  resolved  themselves  into  high  gables.  Like 
Childe  Roland  when  he  came  to  the  dark  tower,  we 
realized  that  these  were  the  gables  of  Noltland  Castle. 
Next  morning  we  explored  this  building.  The  main 
block  consisted  of  a  tower  unusually  large,  in  the 
middle  of  which  was  a  great  red-sandstone  staircase 
winding  round  a  newel  which  culminated  in  a  heral- 
dic monster.  This  staircase  led  to  a  great  hall, 
roofless,  but  otherwise  perfect.  Above  it  had  once 
been  bedrooms.  On  the  ground  floor  were  vaulted 
offices,  including  a  hearth  as  large  as  the  kitchen 
of  a  well-built  cottage.  Attached  to  the  tower  was 
a  court.  Ruined  chambers  surrounded  it,  in  which 
guests,  their  retinues,  and  the  servants  of  the  house 

301 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

once  slept.  Island  chieftains  once  met  and  reveled 
here.  Here  also  for  a  time  the  most  beautiful  woman 
in  Europe — Mary  Stuart,  as  a  captive — looked  out 
at  the  sea. 

Of  the  little  houses  by  the  pier  the  largest  was  a 
combination  of  a  public  house  and  a  store,  where 
we  bought  a  supply  of  soda  water.  The  store- 
keeper was  a  man  of  slightly  sinister  aspect.  He 
might  have  been  a  character  in  one  of  Stevenson's 
novels.  His  aspect  suggested  distant  and  enig- 
matic, and  perhaps  criminal,  adventure.  He  had 
evidently  some  education,  and  spoke  of  the  natives 
with  a  sort  of  detached  condescension.  I  asked  him 
if  they  were  Catholics.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  said:  "Some  are.  In  this  little  island  there  are 
four  hundred  inhabitants,  and  no  fewer  than  five 
religions."  With  the  exception  of  this  man's  store, 
the  only  shop  in  Westray  was  locomotive.  We  met 
it  on  a  lonely  road.  It  was  a  kind  of  glazed  cart, 
the  transparent  sides  of  which  showed  visions  of  the 
goods  within. 

Before  leaving  Westray  we  paid  a  visit  to  a  much 
smaller  island  opposite,  Papa  Westray,  with  an  area 
of  two  thousand  acres.  It  was  occupied  by  two 
farmers,  whose  average  rent  was  more  than  ten 
shillings  an  acre.  On  one  of  these  farmers,  thus 
separated  from  their  kind,  we  called.  His  farmstead 
was  like  a  fortified  town.  His  house  was  larger 
than  many  a  substantial  manse.  The  sideboard  in 
his  spacious  dining  room  was  occupied  by  two  ex- 

30? 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

pensive  Bibles  and  a  finely  cut  decanter  of  whisky, 
but  his  only  neighbors  from  one  year's  end  to  another 
were  apparently  his  rival,  by  whom  the  rest  of  the 
island  was  tenanted,  and  a  female  doctor  lately  im- 
ported from  Edinburgh,  whose  business  was  more 
closely  related  to  the  births  of  the  population  than 
to  their  maladies. 

We  had  hoped,  on  leaving  the  Orkneys,  to  have 
gone  as  far  north  as  the  Shetlands,  but  while  we  were 
lying  off  Westray  the  weather  turned  wet  and 
chilly,  so  we  settled  on  going  south  again,  visiting 
on  our  way  the  islands  of  the  outer  Hebrides.  The 
first  stage  of  our  journey  was  rougher  and  more 
disagreeable  than  anything  we  had  yet  experienced. 
Once  again  we  were  foiled  in  our  efforts  to  get  round 
Cape  Wrath;  and,  having  spent  an  afternoon  lying 
down  in  our  cabins,  we  woke  up  to  find  ourselves 
back  again  in  the  quiet  of  Scapa  Flow.  Next  day  we 
made  a  successful  crossing  over  sixty  miles  of  sea  to 
Tarbet,  a  little  town  crouching  on  the  neck  of  land 
which  connects  the  Lewes  with  Harris.  From  every 
cottage  door  there  issued  a  sound  of  hand  looms. 
The  town  or  village  of  Tarbet  is  in  itself  neat  enough. 
One  of  its  features  is  an  inn  which  would,  with  its 
trim  garden,  do  honor  to  the  banks  of  the  Thames; 
but  a  five  minutes'  stroll  into  the  country  brought  us 
face  to  face  with  a  world  of  colossal  desolations,  com- 
pared with  which  the  scenery  of  Scapa  Flow  is  subur- 
ban. The  little  houses  of  Westray  were,  at  all 
events,  unmistakably  houses.  The  crofters'  huts, 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

almost  within  a  stone's  throw  of  Tarbet,  many  of 
them  oval  in  shape,  are  like  exhalations  of  rounded 
stones  and  heather.  We  felt,  as  we  gravely  looked 
at  them,  that  we  were  back  again  in  the  Stone  Age. 
In  the  island  of  North  Ouist  we  were  visited  by  the 
same  illusion.  The  landing  stage  was,  indeed,  a 
scene  of  crowded  life ;  but  the  life  was  the  life  of  sea 
birds,  which  were  hardly  disturbed  by  our  approach. 
Leaving  North  Ouist,  we  passed  the  mounded  shores 
of  Benbecula,  the  island  where  Prince  Charlie  once 
lived  as  a  fugitive,  and  where  the  islanders,  all  of 
them  Catholics  (as  they  still  are  to-day),  sang  songs 
in  his  honor  which,  without  betraying  his  name, 
called  him  "the  fair-haired  herdsman."  Far  off 
on  an  eminence  we  could  just  distinguish  the  glim- 
merings of  a  Catholic  church,  in  which,  with  strange 
ceremonies,  St.  Michael  is  still  worshiped.  South 
Ouist,  dominated  by  the  great  mountain  of  Hecla, 
likewise  holds  a  population  whose  Catholicism  has 
never  been  broken.  Facing  the  landing  stage  is  an 
inn  obtrusively  modern  in  aspect,  and  a  little  colony 
of  slate-roofed  villas  to  match;  but  here,  as  at  Tar- 
bet,  a  few  steps  brought  us  into  realms  of  mystery. 
Having  strayed  along  an  inland  road  which  wavered 
among  heaths  and  peat  hags  and  gray  boulders,  we 
saw  at  a  distance  some  building  of  hewn  sandstone, 
and  presently  there  emerged  from  its  interior  a  soli- 
tary human  being.  For  a  moment  he  scrutinized 
our  approach,  and  then,  like  a  timid  animal,  before 
we  could  make  him  out,  he  was  gone.  When  we 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

reached  the  building  we  found  that  it  was  a  little 
Catholic  schoolhouse,  and  that  the  door  was  her- 
metically closed.  I  tried  the  effect  of  a  few  very 
gentle  knocks,  and  these  proved  so  ingratiating  that 
the  inmate  at  last  showed  himself.  He  was  the 
schoolmaster — a  youngish  man,  perhaps  rather  more 
than  thirty.  Finding  us  not  formidable,  he  had  no 
objection  to  talking,  though  he  still  was  oddly  shy. 
He  told  us  what  he  could,  in  answer  to  some  ques- 
tions which  we  put  to  him.  I  cannot  remember 
what  he  said,  but  I  remember  his  eyes  and  the  gentle 
modulations  of  his  voice.  They  were  those  of  a  man 
living  in  a  world  of  dreams,  for  whom  the  outer 
world  was  as  remote,  and  the  inner  world  as  pure, 
as  the  silver  of  the  shining  clouds  that  were  streaking 
the  peaks  of  Hecla.  His  face  was  my  last  memento 
of  the  mystery  of  the  Outer  Isles. 

The  rest  of  our  journeyings  lay  among  scenes 
better  known  to  tourists.  We  visited  Skye  and 
Rum,  the  latter  of  which  islands  was  once  occupied 
as  a  deer  forest  by  the  present  Lord  Salisbury's 
grandfather.  Rum  is  infested  by  mosquitoes,  which 
almost  stung  us  to  death.  Lord  Salisbury  told  a 
friend  that  he  protected  himself  from  their  assaults 
by  varnishing  his  person  completely  with  castor  oil. 
The  friend  asked  him  if  this  was  not  very  expensive. 
"Ah,"  he  replied,  "but  I  never  use  the  best."  The 
present  owner  has  built  there  a  great,  inappropriate 
castle.  We  wondered  whether  its  walls  were  proof 
against  these  winged  enemies.  Pursuing  our  south- 

305 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

ward  course,  we  watched  the  Paps  of  Jura  as  they 
rose  into  the  sky  like  sugar  loaves.  Plunging  through 
drifts  of  spray  we  doubled  the  Mall  of  Cantyre,  and 
got  into  waters  familiar  to  half  the  population  of 
Glasgow.  We  lay  for  a  night  off  Arran.  The  follow- 
ing day  we  had  returned  to  our  original  starting  point. 
We  were  hardly  more  than  a  cable's  length  from 
Greenock,  and  once  again  we  heard  the  whistling  of 
locomotive  engines.  At  Greenock  we  separated. 

The  Nobles  were  bound  for  England.  I  was  my- 
self going  north  to  stay  once  more  with  Sir  John  and 
Lady  Guendolen  Ramsden.  By  the  West  Highland 
railway  I  reached  the  diminutive  station  of  Tulloch, 
and  a  drive  of  twenty  miles  brought  me  to  the 
woods,  the  waters,  and  the  granite  turrets  of  Ard- 
verikie.  After  two  months'  acquaintance  with  the 
narrow  quarters  of  a  yacht  there  was  something  odd 
and  agreeable  in  spacious  halls  and  staircases. 
Especially  agreeable  was  my  bedroom,  equipped 
with  a  great,  hospitable  writing  table,  on  which  a 
pile  of  letters  and  postal  packets  was  awaiting  me. 
Of  these  I  opened  a  few  which  alone  promised  to  be 
interesting,  allowing  the  others  to  keep  for  a  more 
convenient  season.  By  the  following  morning, 
which  I  spent  with  Lady  Guendolen,  sketching,  I 
had,  indeed,  almost  forgotten  them,  and  not  till  the 
evening  did  I  give  them  any  attention.  One  of 
them  I  had  recognized  at  once  as  the  proofs  of  an 
article  which  I  had  just  finished,  before  I  joined  the 

yacht,  on  "The  Intellectual  Position  of  the  Labor 

306 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Party  in  Parliament."  The  number  of  this  party 
had  been  doubled  at  the  last  election,  and  my  mind, 
in  consequence,  had  again  begun  to  busy  itself  with 
the  question  of  mere  manual  labor  as  a  factor  in  life 
and  politics.  I  had,  indeed,  on  the  yacht  been  mak- 
ing a  rough  sketch  of  a  second  article  on  this  subject, 
which  would  develop  the  argument  of  the  first. 

That  night  I  glanced  at  the  proofs  before  going  to 
bed,  reflecting  on  the  best  methods  by  which  the 
political  intelligence  of  the  masses  could  be  roused, 
reached,  and  guided.  The  unopened  letters,  none 
of  which  looked  inviting,  I  put  by  my  bedside,  to  be 
examined  when  I  woke  next  morning.  All  except  one 
were  circulars.  One,  bearing  a  business  monogram 
and  evidently  directed  by  a  clerk,  differed  from  the 
rest  in  having  a  foreign  stamp  on  it.  I  indolently 
tore  this  open,  and  discovered  that  it  was  an  invita- 
tion from  a  great  political  body  in  New  York  to  visit 
the  United  States  next  winter  and  deliver  a  series 
of  addresses  on  the  fundamental  fallacies  of  Socialism. 

It  was  at  Ardverikie,  many  years  before,  that  I  had 
first  embarked  on  a  serious  study  of  statistics  as 
essential  to  any  clear  comprehension  of  social  prin- 
ciples and  problems.  By  an  odd  coincidence,  it  was 
at  Ardverikie  likewise  that,  after  years  of  laborious 
thought  as  to  political  questions  which  must  soon,  as 
I  then  foresaw,  become  for  politicians  the  most  vital 
questions  of  all,  I  received  an  invitation  to  address, 
with  regard  to  these  very  questions,  a  public  far  wider 
than  that  of  all  Great  Britain  put  together. 

307 


CHAPTER  XVI 

POLITICS   AND   SOCIETY   IN   AMERICA 

Addresses  on  Socialism — Arrangements  for  Their  Delivery — Amer- 
ican Society  in  Long  Island  and  New  York — Harvard — Prof. 
William  James — President  Roosevelt — Chicago — Second  Stay 
in  New  York — New  York  to  Brittany — A  Critical  Examination 
oj  Socialism — Propaganda  in  England. 

THE  invitation  which  I  have  just  mentioned 
emanated  from  the  Civic  Federation  of  New 
York — a  body  established  for  the  promotion, 
by  knowledge  and  sober  argument,  of  some  rational 
harmony  between  the  employing  classes  and  the 
employed.  Its  council  comprised  prominent  mem- 
bers of  both,  such  as  Mr.  Gompers,  the  trade-union 
leader,  on  one  side,  and  industrial  magnates  of  inter- 
national fame  on  the  other.  It  had  just  been  de- 
cided to  include  in  their  educational  scheme  the 
delivery  at  various  centers  of  special  lectures  on 
Socialism,  by  some  thinker  from  Europe  or  England 
who  would  deal  with  the  subject  in  a  temperate  and 
yet  a  conservative  spirit.  It  had  ultimately  been 
decided  that  the  person  who  would  best  suit  them 
was  myself.  Arrangements  were  made  accordingly, 
and  I  have  every  reason  to  be  grateful  to  those  con- 
cerned for  the  manner  in  which,  on  my  arrival,  they 
consulted  both  my  judgment  and  my  convenience. 
The  great  question  to  be  settled  related  to  the  class 

308 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  audience  to  whom  the  lectures  should  be  delivered, 
and  to  whose  modes  of  thought  they  should  be  ac- 
commodated. I  said  that  in  my  opinion  far  the  best 
course  would  be  to  set  the  idea  of  mass  meetings 
altogether  aside,  and  address  congregations  of  the 
educated  classes  only.  To  this  view  it  was  objected 
that  the  cruder  forms  of  Socialism  are  sufficiently 
repudiated  by  the  educated  classes  already,  and  that 
converting  the  converted  would  be  merely  a  waste 
of  time.  My  own  reply  was  that  the  immediate 
object  to  aim  at  was  not  to  convert  the  converted, 
but  to  teach  the  converted  how  to  convert  others. 
My  position  as  thus  stated  was  ultimately  approved 
by  all;  and  Mr.  Easley,  the  distinguished  secretary 
of  the  Federation,  took  measures  accordingly.  The 
best  course,  he  said,  would  be  to  arrange  with  the 
heads  of  certain  great  universities  for  the  delivery 
of  the  addresses  to  audiences  of  professors  and  stu- 
dents, other  persons  being  admitted  who  felt  any 
inclination  to  attend  These  arrangements  would 
take  some  weeks  to  complete.  Meanwhile,  the  char- 
acter of  the  expected  audiences  being  known,  I 
should  have  ample  time  to  prepare  the  addresses 
accordingly.  The  universities  chosen  were  Columbia. 
Harvard,  Chicago,  Pennsylvania,  and  Johns  Hopkins, 
Mr.  Easley  was  so  good  an  organizer  that  all  the 
details  of  the  program  were  settled  in  the  course  of 
a  few  weeks ;  and,  owing  to  the  kindness  of  American 
friends  in  England,  I  enjoyed  meanwhile  at  New 
York  so  many  social  amenities  that  I  sometimes  could 
21  309 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

hardly  tell  whether  I  was  in  New  York  or  in  London. 
I  was  provided  with  a  sheaf  of  introductions  by  Mrs. 
Bradley  Martin,  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  Lady 
Cunard,  and  others,  while  on  my  arrival  I  was  to 
stay  for  ten  days  or  a  fortnight  with  Mr.  Lloyd 
Bryce,  who  had  been  educated  at  Oxford,  where  he 
and  I  were  intimates.  He  was,  for  the  moment, 
at  his  country  house  in  Long  Island,  and  Sandy 
Hook  was  still  some  hundreds  of  miles  distant  when 
a  wireless  message  reached  me  on  board  the  steamer 
saying  that  his  secretary  would  meet  me,  and  be 
looking  out  for  me  when  I  landed.  The  secretary 
was  there  at  his  post.  He  promptly  secured  a  car- 
riage; he  escorted  me  across  the  city,  accompanied 
me  in  the  ferryboat  from  the  city  to  Long  Island, 
and  saw  me  into  a  train,  which  in  less  than  an  hour 
set  me  down  at  Rosslyn,  a  mile  or  so  from  my  friend's 
house.  At  the  station  gates  there  were  several  foot- 
men waiting,  just  as  there  might  have  been  at  Ascot 
or  Three  Bridges,  and  several  private  carriages.  One 
of  these — a  large  omnibus — was  my  host's.  I  entered 
it,  followed  by  an  orthodox  lady's  maid,  who  was 
laden  with  delicate  parcels,  evidently  from  New 
York,  and  we  were  off.  The  country,  for  the  time 
was  January,  was  covered  with  deep  snow,  which 
clung  to  the  boughs  of  pine  trees  and  glittered  on 
cottage  roofs.  A  mile  or  two  away  from  the  station 
we  turned  into  a  private  drive,  which,  mounting  a 
parklike  slope,  with  dark  pines  for  its  fringes, 
brought  us  to  Lloyd  Bryce's  house.  It  was  a  house 

310, 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  true  Georgian  pattern — a  central  block  with  two 
symmetrical  wings.  Its  red  bricks  might  have  been 
fading  there  for  a  couple  of  hundred  years.  Indoors 
there  was  the  same  quiet  simplicity.  The  grave 
butler  and  two  excellent  footmen  were  English.  The 
only  features  which  were  noticeably  not  English 
were  the  equable  heat  which  seemed  to  prevail 
everywhere  and  the  fact  that  half -drawn  portieres 
were  substituted  for  closed  doors. 

On  the  evening  of  my  arrival  two  young  men  came 
to  dinner.  They  were  brothers,  sons  of  a  father  who 
had  rented  for  several  years  Lord  Lovat's  castle  in 
the  Highlands.  Next  morning  I  was  sent  for  a  drive 
in  a  sleigh.  Here,  too,  I  came  across  things  familiar. 
The  coachman  was  Irish.  He  had  been  born  on  the 
lands  of  a  family  with  which  I  was  well  acquainted, 
and  I  was  pleased  by  the  interest  he  displayed  when 
I  answered  the  questions  which  he  put  to  me  about 
the  three  young  ladies.  A  pleasant  indolence  would, 
however,  have  made  me  more  contented  with  the 
glow  of  a  wood  fire  and  conversation  with  an  old 
friend  than  with  any  ventures  in  the  chill  of  the  outer 
air.  I  was,  therefore,  somewhat  disquieted  when  I 
found,  a  day  or  two  later,  that  my  host  had  ar- 
ranged to  give  me  a  dinner  in  New  York  at  the 
Metropolitan  Club,  then  to  take  me  on  to  the  opera, 
and  not  bring  me  back  till  midnight.  But  the  ex- 
pedition was  interesting.  The  marbles,  the  gilding, 
the  goddesses,  the  gorgeous  ceilings  of  the  Metropoli- 
tan Club  would  have  made  the  Golden  House  of 

3" 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Nero  seem  tame  in  comparison.  The  grand  tier  at 
the  opera  was  a  semicircle  of  dazzling  dresses, 
though  there  was  not,  as  happens  in  London,  any 
obtrusion  of  diamonds.  Here  was  an  example  of 
taste  reticent  as  compared  with  our  own. 

Two  nights  later  my  host  dispatched  me  alone,  to 
dine  at  what  he  described  to  me  as  one  of  the  pleas- 
antest  houses  in  New  York.  I  shrank  from  the 
prospect  of  the  wintry  journey  involved,  but  the 
dinner  was  worth  the  trouble.  My  entertainers — a 
mother  and  two  unmarried  daughters — belonged  to 
one  of  the  oldest  and  best  known  New  York  families. 
The  house  was  in  keeping  with  its  inmates.  It 
closely  resembled  an  old-fashioned  house  in  Curzon 
Street.  As  I  drove  up  to  the  steps  a  butler  and  a 
groom  of  the  chambers,  both  sedate  with  years 
and  exhaling  an  atmosphere  of  long  family  service, 
threw  open  tall  doors,  and  admitted  me  to  the  sober 
world  within.  The  room  in  which  the  guests  were 
assembled  seemed  to  be  lined  with  books.  On  the 
tables  were  half  the  literary  reviews  of  Europe.  My 
hostess  and  her  daughters  gave  me  the  kindest  wel- 
come. I  was  somewhat  bewildered  by  the  number 
of  strange  faces,  but  among  them  was  that  of  a  diplo- 
mat whom  I  had  known  for  many  years  in  London; 
and  the  "high  seriousness,"  as  Matthew  Arnold 
might  have  called  it,  of  the  men  was  tempered  by 
the  excellence  of  the  dinner,  and  by  the  dresses, 
perfect  though  subtly  subdued,  of  the  women. 
Some  days  later  Mr.  Easley  and  an  assistant 
312 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

secretary  came  from  New  York  to  call  on  me  and 
discuss  the  arrangements  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken.  Meanwhile  I  had  secured  rooms  in  the 
city  at  the  Savoy  Hotel,  to  which  in  due  time  I 
migrated.  The  day  after  my  arrival  Mr.  Easley 
appeared  again,  and  with  him  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray 
Butler,  the  president  of  Columbia  University.  It 
was  arranged  that  my  first  addresses  should  be  given 
there  under  his  auspices,  and  during  the  next  three 
weeks  I  was  daily  occupied  in  preparing  them. 
When  the  day  approached  which  had  been  fixed 
for  the  delivery  of  the  first,  Doctor  Butler  gave  a 
luncheon  party  at  the  Metropolitan  Club,  at  which 
he  invited  me  to  meet  the  editors  and  other  repre- 
sentatives of  the  weightiest  of  the  New  York  papers. 
I  explained  the  general  scheme  of  argument  which 
I  proposed  to  follow,  and  it  appeared,  after  an  in- 
terchange of  speeches,  that  it  met  with  general 
approbation. 

This  luncheon  party  and  its  results  struck  me  as  a 
marked  example  of  the  promptitude  and  businesslike 
sagacity  characteristic  of  American  methods.  Every 
address  which  I  delivered  at  Columbia  University 
was  reported  verbatim  and  fully  in  the  columns  of 
these  great  journals.  The  audiences  immediately 
addressed  were,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  limited, 
but  my  arguments  were,  in  effect,  at  once  brought 
home  to  the  minds  of  innumerable  thousands,  and 
their  main  points  emphasized  by  a  concert  of  leading 
articles.  The  drastic  efficiency  of  this  procedure  in 

313 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

New  York  and  at  other  centers  was  sufficiently 
shown  by  the  countless  letters  I  received  from 
Socialists  in  all  parts  of  America,  most  of  these 
letters  being  courteous,  some  very  much  the  reverse ; 
but  all  indicating  that  I  had  succeeded  in  making 
the  writers  reflect  on  problems  to  which  they  had 
previously  given  insufficient  attention. 

The  composition  of  these  addresses,  and  the  re- 
duction of  them  to  their  final  form,  was  a  work 
which,  since  time  was  limited,  required  much  con- 
centrated labor;  but  the  labor  was  lightened  by  the 
extraordinary  hospitality  of  friends,  who  made  me 
feel  that,  so  far  as  society  goes,  I  had  only  exchanged 
one  sort  of  London  for  another.  In  my  sitting  room 
at  the  Savoy  Hotel,  on  arriving  from  Long  Island, 
I  found  a  number  of  notes  inviting  me  to  dinners, 
to  concerts,  and  various  other  entertainments.  The 
first  of  these  was  a  luncheon  at  Mrs.  John  Jacob 
Astor's.  Her  house  was  one  which  might  have  been 
in  Grosvenor  Place;  and,  for  matter  of  that,  so 
might  half  the  company.  I  found  myself  sitting  by 
Mrs.  Hwfa  Williams.  Not  far  off  was  her  husband, 
an  eminent  figure  in  the  racing  world  of  England. 
There,  too,  I  discovered  Harry  Higgins,  whom  I 
had  known  in  his  Oxford  days,  before  his  translation 
from  Merton  to  Knightsbridge  barracks;  and  op- 
posite to  me  was  Monsignor  Vay  di  Vaya,  an  Aus- 
trian ornament  of  the  Vatican,  who  wore  a  dazzling 
cross  on  a  perfectly  cut  waistcoat,  and  who,  when  I 
last  saw  him,  had  been  winding  wool  in  the  Highlands 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

for  Mrs.  Bradley  Martin.  Mrs.  Astor,  if  I  may  pay 
her  a  very  inadequate  compliment,  merely  by  her 
delicate  presence  seemed  to  turn  life  into  a  picture 
on  an  old  French  fan. 

My  first  evening  party  was,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
a  concert  at  the  house  of  one  of  the  Vanderbilt 
families.  I  had  hardly  entered  the  music  room  before 
my  host,  with  extreme  kindness,  indicated  a  lady 
who  was  sitting  next  a  vacant  chair,  and  said, 
"Over  there  is  someone  you  would  like  to  know." 
He  introduced  me  to  this  lady,  who  was  Mrs. 
Stuyvesant  Fish — one  of  the  best-known  and  im- 
portant figures  in  the  social  world  of  New  York. 
I  was  subsequently  often  at  her  house.  I  have  rarely 
been  better  entertained  than  -I  was  by  her  conversa- 
tion that  night  during  the  intervals  of  the  musical 
program. 

This  kindness  in  introducing  a  stranger  to  persons 
likely  to  be  agreeable  to  him  struck  me  as  a  dis- 
tinguishing feature  of  the  New  York  world  generally. 
I  experienced  it  often  at  the  opera,  where  the  oc- 
cupants of  the  grand  tier  form  practically  a  social 
club,  as  well  as  a  mere  musical  gathering.  On  one 
occasion,  when  I  was  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sloane 
in  their  box,  Mr.  Sloane  took  me  round  to  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  house  to  present  me  to  a  lady  whose 
attractions  he  praised,  and  did  not  praise  too  highly. 
I  asked  him  the  name  of  another  of  singularly  charm- 
ing aspect.  Her  box  was  close  to  his.  "Come," 
he  said,  "I  will  introduce  you  now."  Here  is  one  of 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

those  graces  of  social  conduct  which  are,  as  I  have 
observed  already  with  reference  ot  London,  possible 
only  in  societies  which  are  more  or  less  carefully 
restricted. 

There  is  another  matter  in  which  the  social  world 
of  New  York  struck  me  as  differing  from  that  of 
London,  and  differing  from  it  in  a  manner  precisely 
opposite  to  that  which  those  who  derive  their  views 
from  the  gossip  of  journalists  would  suppose.  Ac- 
cording to  ordinary  rumor,  fashionable  entertain- 
ments in  New  York  are  scenes  of  extravagance  so 
wild  that  they  cease  to  be  luxurious  and  assume 
the  characteristics  of  a  farce.  My  own  short  ex- 
perience led  me  to  a  conclusion  the  very  reverse  of 
this.  Certain  hotels,  no  doubt,  are  notoriously  over- 
gilded. A  story  is  told  of  a  certain  country  couple 
who  stayed  for  a  night  at  one  of  them.  The  wife 
said  to  the  husband,  "Why  don't  you  put  your 
boots  outside  the  door  to  be  blacked?"  "My  dear," 
said  the  husband,  "I'm  afraid  I  should  find  them 
gilt."  I  speak  here  of  private  houses  and  private 
entertainments  only.  The  ultrafashionable  concert 
which  I  mentioned  just  now  is  an  instance.  The 
music  was  followed  by  supper.  The  company 
strayed  slowly  through  some  intervening  rooms  to 
the  dining  room.  It  was  full  of  little  round  tables 
at  which  little  groups  were  seating  themselves,  but 
when  I  entered  the  tables  were  entirely  bare.  Pres- 
ently servants  went  round  placing  a  cloth  on  each 
of  them.  Then  on  each  were  deposited  a  bottle 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

of  champagne  and  two  or  three  plates  of  sandwiches, 
That  was  all.  At  a  corresponding  party  in  London 
there  would  have  been  soups,  souffles,  aspic,  truffles, 
and  ortolans.  As  it  was,  the  affair  was  a  simple 
picnic  de  luxe.  To  the  dinner  parties  at  which  I 
was  present  the  same  observation  applies.  The  New 
York  fashionable  dinner,  so  far  as  its  menu  is  con- 
cerned, seemed  to  me  incomparably  simpler  than  its 
fashionable  counterpart  in  London.  The  only  form 
of  extravagance,  or  of  what  one  might  call  ostenta- 
tion, so  far  as  I  could  see,  was  what  would  have 
been  thought  in  London  the  multitude  of  superfluous 
footmen,  and  in  houses  like  that  of  Lloyd  Bryce  even 
this  feature  was  wanting.  The  only  dinner  which, 
within  the  limits  of  my  own  experience,  represented 
the  extravagance  so  often  depicted  by  journalists— 
a  dinner  which  was  signalized  by  monumental  plate, 
which  rose  from  the  table  to  the  ceiling — was  at 
a  house  which,  despite  its  magnitude,  was  practically 
ignored  by  the  arbitresses  of  polite  society. 

When  the  delivery  of  my  addresses  at  Columbia 
University  was  completed  I  went  from  New  York  to 
Cambridge  and  remained  there  for  ten  days.  Har- 
vard in  many  ways  reminded  me  of  our  own  Cam- 
bridge. The  professors,  among  whom  I  made  many 
charming  acquaintances,  had  not  only  the  accent, 
but  also  the  intonation  of  Englishmen.  They  had 
with  them  more,  too,  of  the  ways  of  the  outer  world 
than  is  commonly  found  in  the  university  dons  of 
England.  Notable  among  these  was  Prof.  William 

31? 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

James,  with  whom  I  was  already  familiar  through 
his  singularly  interesting  book,  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience — to  me  very  much  more  interesting  than 
his  brother's  later  novels. 

At  Harvard,  also,  I  was  presented  to  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, who  had  come  there  for  the  purpose  of  ad- 
dressing a  great  meeting  of  students.  The  presenta- 
tion took  place  in  a  large  private  room,  and  was  a 
ceremony  resembling  that  of  a  presentation  to  the 
King  of  England.  Some  dozen  or  more  persons 
were  introduced  to  the  President  in  succession, 
their  names  being  announced  by  some  de  facto  official. 
With  each  of  these  he  entered  into  a  more  or  less 
prolonged  conversation.  I  observed  his  methods 
with  interest.  In  each  case  he  displayed  a  remark- 
able knowledge  of  the  achievements  or  opinions  of 
the  person  whom  he  was  for  the  time  addressing; 
and,  having  thus  done  his  duty  to  these,  he  proceeded 
to  an  exposition,  much  more  lengthy,  of  his  own. 
When  my  turn  came  he  was  very  soon  confiding  to 
me  that  nothing  which  he  had  read  for  years  had 
struck  him  so  forcibly  as  parts  of  my  own  Veil 
of  the  Temple,  which  he  had  evidently  read  with  care. 
He  crowned  these  flattering  remarks  by  asking  me, 
should  this  be  possible,  to  come  and  see  him  at 
Washington  before  I  returned  to  England;  and  then, 
I  cannot  remember  how,  he  got  on  the  subject  of  the 
Black  Republic,  and  of  how,  in  his  opinion,  such 
states  ought  to  be  governed.  On  this  matter  he  was 
voluble,  and  voluble  with  unguarded  emphasis.  I 

318 


w 


THEODORE    ROOSEVELT 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

never  heard  the  accents  of  instinctive  autocracy 
more  clearly  than,  for  some  ten  minutes,  I  then 
heard  them  in  his.  I  wished  I  could  have  seen  him 
at  Washington,  but  I  had  no  unoccupied  week  during 
which  he  would  have  been  able  to  receive  me. 

From  Cambridge  I  went  in  succession  to  Chicago, 
Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore.  At  each  of  these 
places  I  addressed  considerable  gatherings,  and 
everywhere  (except  at  Philadelphia)  I  encountered 
some  hostile,  though  no  acrimonious,  questioning. 
At  the  doors,  however,  on  some  occasions  a  quiet 
Socialist  emissary  would  offer  some  tract  to  the  in- 
goers,  in  which  my  arguments  were  attacked  before 
they  had  been  so  much  as  uttered.  Why  the 
temperament  of  one  place  should  differ  from  that  at 
another  is  not  easy  to  say,  but  at  Philadelphia  I  was 
not  only  listened  to  without  question,  but  at  every 
salient  point  I  was  greeted  with  uproarious  applause. 
Having  spent  some  days  at  Baltimore,  and  having 
accomplished  what  I  had  undertaken  to  do  on  behalf 
of  the  Civic  Federation,  I  returned  to  New  York, 
and,  except  for  two  speeches  outside  our  formal  pro- 
gram, I  gave  myself  up  for  a  month  to  the  relaxations 
of  society. 

My  return  to  New  York  was  marked  by  a  curious 
incident,  which  occurred  when  I  left  the  ferryboat. 
The  porter  whom  I  secured  told  me,  having  looked 
about  him,  that  there  was  not  a  cab  available.  I 
pointed  to  a  row  of  four-wheeled  motor  hansoms, 
but  none  of  these,  he  said,  was  going  out  to-night, 

319 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

except  one  which  had  been  just  appropriated. 
While  he  was  explaining  this  to  me,  from  the  dark- 
ness of  one  of  these  vehicles  a  courteous  voice 
emerged,  asking  where  I  was  going,  as  the  speaker 
perhaps  might  be  able  to  drop  me  somewhere.  I 
told  him  my  destination ;  he  agreed  to  take  me,  and 
I  was  presently  seated  at  his  side,  perceiving,  in- 
deed, that  he  was  a  man  and  not  a  woman,  but  quite 
unable  to  distinguish  anything  else.  He  presently 
informed  me  that  he  was  just  back  from  a  golf 
course.  I  informed  him  that  I  was  from  Baltimore. 
"You,"  he  said,  "to  judge  from  your  voice,  must,  I 
think,  be  English.  I  have  often  played  golf  in 
England  not  very  far  from  Chichester."  I  asked 
him  where,  on  those  occasions,  he  stayed.  He 
answered,  "With  Willie  James."  I  told  him  that  I 
had  known  Willie  James  years  ago  at  Cannes.  ' '  My 
own  name  is  James,"  he  said.  "Will  you  think  me 
inquisitive  if  I  venture  to  ask  yours?"  I  told  him, 
and  he  at  once  "placed"  me.  "I  should  think,"  he 
said,  "you  must  know  Baltimore  well."  I  asked 
him  why  he  thought  so.  "Well,"  he  said,  "in  the 
book  of  yours  that  I  like  best — in  The  Old  Order 
Changes — you  introduce  an  American  colonel — a 
Southerner,  and  you  describe  him  on  one  occasion 
as  absorbed  in  the  perusal  of  the  Baltimore  Weekly 
Sun.  That  paper's  a  real  paper,  and,  because  you 
introduced  its  name,  I  thought  that  you  must  know 
Baltimore."  The  name,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned, 
was  entirely  my  own  invention. 

320 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Lloyd  Bryce,  who  knew  of  my  arrival,  and  who 
had,  during  my  absence,  left  Long  Island  for  New 
York,  asked  me  next  day  to  dine  with  him.  This 
was  the  first  of  a  new  series  of  hospitalities.  The 
company  was  extremely  entertaining.  It  comprised 
Mr.  Jerome,  celebrated  in  the  legal  world,  and  at 
that  time  especially  celebrated  in  connection  with  a 
sensational  case  which  was  exciting  the  attention  of 
the  public  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco.  This 
was  the  trial  of  Thaw  for  the  murder  of  Stanford 
White,  of  which  dramatic  incident  Evelyn  Nesbit 
was  the  heroine.  She  was,  at  least  in  appearance, 
little  more  than  a  schoolgirl.  She  had  lived  with 
Stanford  White,  however,  on  terms  of  precocious 
intimacy.  Subsequently  Thaw,  a  rich  ' ' degenerate," 
had  married  her,  but  the  thought  of  Stanford  White 
was  always  ready  to  sting  him  into  moods  of  morbid 
jealousy.  He  took  her  one  evening  after  dinner  to 
a  roof  garden  in  New  York.  Stanford  White  was 
by  accident  sitting  at  a  table  in  front  of  him.  Watch- 
ing his  wife  closely,  Thaw  detected,  or  thought  he 
detected,  signs  of  a  continued  understanding  be- 
tween her  and  her  late  ' '  protector. ' '  Quietly  leaving 
her  side,  he  approached  Stanford  White  from  behind 
and  shot  him  dead  with  a  pistol  before  the  whole  of 
the  assembled  company.  The  defense  was  that  his 
rival  had  given  him  outrageous  provocation,  and 
that  he  himself  was  temporarily,  if  not  chronically, 
insane.  Every  attempt  was  made  by  the  partisans 
of  his  wife  to  enlist  public  feeling  in  her  favor;  to 

321 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

prove  that  Stanford  White  was  the  aggressor,  and 
that  her  husband's  deed  was  unpremeditated.  The 
trial  was  protracted,  and  the  story,  as  it  was  brought 
to  light,  was  one  which  could  hardly  be  equaled  out- 
side Balzac's  novels.  Had  the  heroine  of  this 
drama  not  been  a  beautiful  young  woman,  she  and 
her  husband  would  probably  have  been  forgotten  in 
a  week.  As  it  was,  if  any  man  in  the  street  was  seen 
to  be  absolutely  stationary  and  absorbed  in  an 
evening  paper,  an  observer  would  have  discovered 
that  the  main  feature  of  its  pages  was  a  portrait  of 
Evelyn  Nesbit  in  some  new  dress  or  attitude,  with 
her  eyes  half  raised  or  drooping,  and  her  hair  tied  up 
behind  in  a  black,  semichildish  bow.  Mr.  Jerome, 
with  a  good  deal  of  pungent  humor,  told  me  many 
anecdotes  of  the  trial,  and  wound  up  with  an  al- 
lusion to  what  he  considered  the  defects  of  American 
judges.  "In  England,"  he  said,  "you  make  men 
judges  because  they  understand  the  law.  The 
trouble  with  us  is  that  here,  as  often  as  not,  a  man 
will  be  made  a  judge  because  he  can  play  football." 
The  mention  of  Stanford  White  suggests  a  topic 
more  creditable  to  himself  than  his  death,  and  also 
possessing  a  different  and  wider  interest.  Stanford 
White,  whatever  may  have  been  his  private  life, 
was  the  greatest  architect  in  America.  Some  of  the 
finest  buildings  in  New  York  are  due  to  his  signal 
genius,  and  here  I  am  led  on  to  reflections  of  a  yet 
more  extensive  kind.  My  own  impression  was  that 
architecture  in  America  generally  possesses  a  vitality 

322 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which  to-day  is  absent  from  it  in  older  countries. 
This  observation  is  pertinent  to  New  York  more 
especially.  New  York  being  built  on  a  narrow  island, 
it  has  there  become  necessary,  to  a  degree  hardly  to 
be  paralleled  elsewhere  in  the  world,  to  extend  new 
buildings  not  laterally,  but  upward.  To  this  living 
upward  pressure  are  due  the  towering  structures 
vulgarly  called  "skyscrapers."  These,  if  properly 
understood,  resemble  rather  the  old  campanili  of 
Italy,  and  suggest  the  work  of  Giotto.  They  make 
New  York,  seen  from  a  distance,  look  like  a  San 
Gimignano  reconstructed  by  giants.  I  am,  however, 
thinking  not  of  the  ' '  skyscrapers ' '  only.  I  am  think- 
ing rather  of  buildings,  lofty  indeed,  but  not  tower- 
like,  such  as  certain  clubs,  blocks  of  residential  flats, 
or  business  premises  in  Fifth  Avenue — such,  for 
instance,  as  those  of  the  great  firm  of  Tiffany. 
Though  metal  frameworks  are,  no  doubt,  embedded 
in  these,  the  stonework  is  structurally  true  to  the 
strains  of  the  metal  which  it  incases,  and  the  stones 
of  the  rusticated  bases  might  have  been  hewn  and 
put  together  by  Titans.  We  have  more  here  than 
an  academic  repetition  of  bygone  tastes  and  models. 
We  have  an  expression  in  stone  of  the  needs  of  a  new 
world. 

One  of  the  most  charming  examples  of  architectural 
art  in  New  York,  lighter  in  kind  than  these,  and  when 
I  was  there  the  most  recent,  was  a  new  ladies'  club, 
which  largely  owed  its  existence — so  I  was  told — 
to  the  aid  of  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan.  Within  and 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

without,  from  its  halls  to  its  numerous  bedrooms, 
the  taste  displayed  was  perfect.  When  I  was  in 
New  York  it  was  just  about  to  be  opened,  and  I  was 
invited  to  take  part  in  the  ceremony  by  delivering 
an  inaugural  address.  I  took  for  my  subject  the 
Influence  of  Women  on  Industry;  and  the  pith  of 
what  I  had  to  say  was  compressed  into  a  single  anec- 
dote which  I  had  heard  only  the  day  before.  My 
informant  had  just  been  told  it  by  one  of  Tiffany's 
salesmen.  A  few  days  previously  the  great  jewel- 
er's shop  had  been  entered  by  a  couple  singularly 
unlike  in  aspect  to  the  patrons  who  were  accustomed 
to  frequent  it.  One  of  them  was  a  weather-beaten 
man  in  a  rough  pilot  jacket;  the  other  was  an  odd 
old  womar  bundled  up  in  a  threadbare  coat  of  the 
cheapest  imitation  fur.  The  man,  with  a  gruff  shy- 
ness, blurted  out,  "I  should  like  to  see  a  diamond 
necklace."  The  salesman  with  some  hesitation  put 
a  necklace  before  him  of  no  very  precious  kind. 
The  man  eyed  it  askance  and  said,  dubiously,  "Is 
that  the  best  you've  got?"  The  price  of  this  was 
twenty  pounds.  The  salesman  produced  another 
and  a  somewhat  larger  ornament.  The  price  of  this 
was  forty.  The  man,  still  dissatisfied,  said,  "Have 
you  nothing  better  still?"  "If,"  said  the  salesman, 
by  way  of  getting  rid  of  him,  "by  better  you  mean 
more  expensive,  I  can  show  you  another.  The  price 
of  that  is  four  hundred."  This  drama  was  still  re- 
peated, till  the  salesman,  out  of  pure  curiosity,  put 
before  him  one  the  price  of  which  was  a  thousand. 

324 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  man,  however,  again  repeated  his  one  unvarying 
question,  "Is  that  the  best  you've  got?"  The  sales- 
man, at  last  losing  patience,  said,  "Well,  if  it  should 
happen  to  interest  you,  I  can  let  you  have  a  look  at 
the  most  magnificent  necklace  that  money  could 
buy  in  New  York  City  to-day.  The  price  of  that 
necklace  is  fifty  thousand  pounds."  He  turned  to 
put  it  away,  but  the  weather-beaten  man  stopped 
him.  He  thrust  a  hand  into  the  pocket  of  his  rough 
jacket  and  extracted  from  its  recesses  an  immense 
bundle  of  notes.  He  counted  out  the  sum  which 
the  salesman  named.  He  clasped  the  necklace 
round  the  old  woman's  threadbare  collar  and  ex- 
claimed, in  a  tone  of  triumph,  "Didn't  I  always  tell 
you  that  as  soon  as  I'd  made  my  pile  you  should 
have  the  finest  necklace  that  money  in  New  York 
could  buy ? "  "That  necklace,"  said  Tiffany's  sales- 
man to  my  informant,  "will  never  be  stolen  so  long 
as  it's  worn  like  that,  for  no  one  in  his  senses  will 
ever  believe  it's  real."  The  moral  which  I  drew 
from  this  anecdote  for  the  benefit  of  my  fair  audience 
was  that  women,  if  not  the  producers  of  wealth,  are 
the  main  incentives  to  production,  that  if  it  were 
not  for  them  half  of  the  civilized  industries  of  the 
entire  world  would  cease,  and  that  the  Spirit  of 
Commerce,  looking  at  any  well-dressed  woman, 
might  say,  in  the  words  of  Marlow,  "This  is  the  face 
that  launched  a  thousand  ships";  while  the  Spirit 
of  Socialism  could  do  nothing  but  "burn  the  topless 
towers."  In  this  way  of  putting  the  case  there  was 
22  325 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

perhaps  some  slight  exaggeration,  but  there  is  in  it, 
at  all  events,  more  truth  than  falsehood. 

Another  address — it  took  a  more  serious  form — I 
delivered  by  special  request  to  a  more  comprehen- 
sive audience,  in  which  ladies  likewise  abounded. 
It  was  delivered  in  one  of  the  theaters.  The  subject 
I  was  asked  to  discuss  was  a  manifesto  which  had 
just  been  issued  by  a  well-to-do  cleric  in  favor  of 
Christian  Socialism.  The  argument  of  this  divine 
was  interesting  and  certain  parts  of  re  were  sound. 
Its  fault  was  that  the  end  of  it  quite  forgot  the  begin- 
ning. He  began  by  admitting  that  the  great  for- 
tunes of  to-day  were  due  for  the  most  part  to  the  few 
who  possessed  to  an  exceptional  degree  the  talents 
by  which  wealth  is  produced;  but  talents  of  this 
special  class  were,  he  said,  wholly  unconnected  with 
any  moral  desert.  Indeed,  the  mere  production  of 
such  goods  as  are  estimable  in  terms  of  money  was, 
of  all  forms  of  human  activity,  the  lowest,  and  the 
men  who  made  money  were  the  last  people  in  the 
world  who  ought  to  be  allowed  to  keep  it.  The  de- 
mand of  Socialism  was,  he  said,  that  this  gross  and 
despicable  thing  should  be  distributed  among  other 
people.  The  special  demand  of  Christian  Socialism 
was  that  the  principal  claimant  on  all  growing 
wealth  should  be  the  Church.  The  fault,  he  said, 
of  the  existing  situation  was  due  to  the  fathers  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  who  laid  it 
down  that  one  of  the  primary  rights  of  the  individual 
was  freedom  to  produce  as  much  as  he  could,  and 

326 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

keep  it;  the  true  formula  being,  according  to  him, 
that  every  man  who  produced  appreciably  more 
than  his  neighbors  should  be  either  hampered  in  pro- 
duction or  else  deprived  of  his  products.  It  was  not 
difficult  to  show,  without  passing  the  bounds  of  good 
humor,  that  the  arguments  of  this  semienlightened 
reformer  were,  in  the  end,  like  a  snake  whose  head 
was  biting  off  its  tail. 

Except  for  Monsignor  Vay  di  Vaya,  the  only  cleric 
whom  I  met  in  New  York  society  was  one  of  dis- 
tinguished aspect  and  exceedingly  charming  man- 
ners, who  was  certainly  not  an  apostle  of  Christian 
or  any  other  form  of  Socialism;  but  an  anecdote  was 
told  me  of  another  whose  congregation,  according  to 
a  reporter,  was  "the  most  exclusive  in  New  York," 
and  had  the  honor  of  comprising  Mr.  J.  Pierpont 
Morgan.  This  clergyman  was  one  morning  surprised 
by  receiving  a  visit  from  a  negro,  who  expressed  a 
desire  to  join  his  exclusive  flock.  The  shepherd  was 
somewhat  embarrassed,  but  received  his  visitor 
kindly.  "You  are,"  he  said,  "contemplating  a  very 
serious  step.  My  advice  to  you  is  that  you  seek 
counsel  in  prayer;  that,  if  possible,  you  should  see 
our  Lord;  that  you  make  quite  sure  that  this  step 
is  one  of  which  our  Lord  would  approve ;  and  that  in 
three  weeks'  time  you  come  and  talk  again  to  me." 
The  postulant  thanked  him,  and  in  three  weeks  reap- 
peared. "Well,"  said  the  clergyman,  "have  you 
prayed  earnestly,  as  I  advised  you?"  The  negro 
said  that  he  had.  "And  may  I,"  said  the  clergy  - 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

man,  "ask  you  if  you  have  seen  our  Lord?"  "Yes, 
sah,"  said  the  negro,  "I  have."  "And  what,"  asked 
the  clergyman,  "was  it  that  our  Lord  said  to  you? 
Could  you  manage  to  tell  me?"  "What  our  Lord 
said  to  me,"  the  negro  replied,  "was  this:  'I've  been 
trying  for  eighteen  years  to  get  into  that  church,  but 
I  can't.  I  guess  that  your  trying  will  come  to  no 
more  than  mine.' ' 

Meanwhile  I  had  begun,  in  the  intervals  between 
social  engagements,  to  recast  my  addresses,  with  a 
view,  as  I  have  said  already,  to  transforming  them 
into  a  connected  book.  The  first  stage  in  this  proc- 
ess was  the  preparation  of  an  intermediate  version 
of  them,  which  was  to  be  issued  as  a  series  of  articles 
in  an  important  monthly  journal,  these  serving  as 
the  foundation  of  the  book  in  its  complete  form, 
which  was  by  and  by  to  be  issued  in  America  and 
England  simultaneously. 

I  had  arranged  to  return  by  the  French  steamer 
Provence — -a  magnificent  vessel — the  largest  that  the 
harbor  of  Havre  could  accommodate.  The  restau- 
rant was  decorated  like  a  Salon  of  the  time  of  Louis 
Quinze.  The  cooking  was  admirable,  the  tables  were 
bright  with  flowers.  I  was  asked  to  sit  at  a  table  re- 
served for  a  charming  lady,  who  was  bringing  with  her 
her  own  champagne  and  butter,  with  both  of  which 
she  insisted  on  providing  her  friends  also.  My  cabin, 
though  small,  was  perfect  in  the  way  of  decoration. 
An  ormolu  reading  lamp  stood  by  the  silken  curtains 
of  the  bed.  The  washing  basin  was  of  pink  marble. 

3*8 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Before  returning  to  England  I  had  settled  on 
spending  some  solitary  months  in  Brittany,  during 
which  it  was  my  object  to  bring  my  forthcoming 
work  to  completion.  I  spent  a  week  in  Paris,  where 
my  French  servant  rejoined  me,  whom  I  had  left  to 
enjoy  during  my  absence  a  holiday,  with  his  family 
near  Grenoble.  I  never  in  my  life  met  anyone  with 
more  satisfaction. 

Paris  is  notoriously  congenial  to  the  upper  classes 
of  America;  and  yet  between  Paris  and  New  York 
there  is  one  subtle  and  pervading  difference.  Paris 
has  behind  it  in  its  buildings  and  the  ways  of  its 
people  what  New  York  has  not — a  thousand  years 
of  history.  The  influence  of  the  past  is  even  more 
apparent  in  Brittany ;  and  New  York  became  some- 
thing hardly  credible  when  I  found  myself  in  a  little 
hotel — at  which  I  had  engaged  rooms — an  hotel 
girdled  by  the  ramparts  and  medieval  towers  of 
Dinan.  I  remained  there  for  six  weeks,  during 
which  time  my  book,  to  which  I  gave  the  name  A 
Critical  Examination  of  Socialism,  was  very  nearly 
completed.  In  spite,  however,  of  my  labor,  I  from 
time  to  time  found  leisure  for  pilgrimages  to  moated 
chateaux,  which  seemed  still  to  be  enjoying  a  siesta 
of  social  and  religious  peace,  unbroken  by  revolu- 
tions and  even  undisturbed  by  republics.  Of  these 
chateaux  one  was  the  home  of  Chateaubriand. 
Another,  which  I  traveled  a  hundred  miles  to  see, 
was  the  Chateau  de  Kerjaen,  its  gray  gates  ap- 
proached by  three  huge  converging  avenues,  and  the 

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MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

outer  walls  by  which  the  chateau  itself  is  sheltered 
measuring  seven  hundred  by  four  hundred  feet. 
Though  parts  of  it  are  habitable  and  inhabited, 
Kerjaen  is  partly  ruinous,  but  its  ruin  was  not  due 
to  violence.  It  was  due  to  an  accidental  fire  which 
took  place  when  Robespierre  was  still  in  his  cradle 
and  even  in  his  dreams  was  "guiltless  of  his  coun- 
try's blood."  Coming,  as  I  did,  fresh  from  the  New 
World,  there  was  for  me  in  Brittany  something  of 
the  magic  of  Hungary. 

A  Critical  Examination  of  Socialism  was  published 
a  few  months  after  my  return  to  England,  where 
Socialist  agitation  meanwhile  had  become  more 
active  than  ever,  and  I  presently  discovered  that 
certain  attempts  were  being  made  to  establish  some 
organized  body  for  the  purpose  of  systematically 
counteracting  it.  I  put  myself  in  connection  with 
those  who  were  taking,  or  willing  to  take,  some 
leading  part  in  this  enterprise.  The  final  result 
was  the  establishment  of  two  bodies — the  Anti- 
Socialist  Union,  under  the  presidency  of  Col.  Claude 
Lowther,  and  a  School  of  Anti-Socialist  Economics, 
which,  through  the  agency  of  Captain  (now  Sir 
Herbert)  Jessel,  was  affiliated  to  the  London  Mu- 
nicipal Society — a  body  which,  owing  to  him,  was 
already  proving  itself  influential.  All  the  persons 
concerned  had  precisely  the  same  objects,  but  there 
were  certain  disagreements  as  to  the  methods  which 
at  starting  were  most  imperative.  So  far  as  prin- 
ciples were  concerned,  the  Anti-Socialist  Union  were 

330 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

so  completely  in  agreement  with  myself  that  they 
bought  a  large  edition  of  my  Critical  Analysis  of 
Socialism  for  distribution  as  a  textbook  among  the 
speakers  and  writers  whom  it  was  part  of  their  pro- 
gram to  employ.  There  were,  however,  certain  de- 
tails of  procedure  in  respect  of  which  Captain  Jessel's 
opinions  were  more  in  accordance  with  my  own. 
He  and  I,  therefore,  settled  on  working  together, 
taking  the  existing  machinery  of  the  London  Mu- 
nicipal Society  as  our  basis,  while  the  Anti-Socialist 
Union  proceeded  on  parallel,  though  on  somewhat 
different,  lines.  Captain  Jessel  and  I  established,  by 
way  of  a  beginning,  a  school  for  speakers — mostly 
active  young  men — who  would  speak  Sunday  by 
Sunday  in  the  parks  and  other  public  places,  and 
attract  audiences  whose  attention  had  been  pre- 
viously secured  by  Socialists.  These  speakers  sent 
in  weekly  reports,  describing  the  results  of  their 
work,  which  were  for  the  most  part  of  a  singularly 
encouraging  kind.  But  the  number  of  these  speakers 
was  small,  and,  since  all  their  expenses  were  paid, 
the  funds  at  our  immediate  disposal  would  not  enable 
us  to  increase  it.  It  appeared  to  me,  therefore, 
that  our  work  would  be  best  extended  by  a  distri- 
bution of  literature — leaflets  or  small  pamphlets — 
simple  in  style,  but  coherent  in  their  general  import, 
and  appealing  not  to  the  man  in  the  street  only,  but 
to  educated  men,  even  Members  of  Parliament,  also. 
A  start  in  this  direction  was  made  by  the  publication 
of  skeleton  speeches,  many  of  them  written  by  my- 

331 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

self,  which  any  orator  in  the  parks  or  in  Parliament 
might  fill  in  as  he  pleased,  and  which  was  supple- 
mented by  weekly  pamphlets  called  "Facts  Against 
Socialism."  I  found,  however,  that  in  preparing 
these  my  attention  was  more  and  more  occupied  by 
industrial  and  social  statistics,  and  I  was,  in  my 
colleague's  opinion,  concerning  myself  too  much  with 
matters  which  were  over  the  heads  of  the  people. 

For  several  reasons  my  view  of  the  matter  was 
not  quite  the  same  as  his.  It  was,  therefore,  settled 
that  this  statistical  work  should  be  prosecuted  by 
myself  independently,  and  in  something  like  two 
years  I  issued,  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three  a  month,  a 
series  of  pamphlets  called  "Statistical  Monographs," 
addressed  especially  to  Members  of  Parliament. 
Three  of  these  pamphlets  dealt  with  the  land  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  the  number  of  owners  and  the 
acreage  and  value  of  their  holdings.  Two  of  them 
dealt  with  the  number  and  value  of  the  houses  which 
had  been  annually  built  during  the  past  ten  or 
fifteen  years.  Two  of  them  dealt  with  coal-mining 
and  the  ratio  in  that  industry  of  wages  to  net  profits. 
Each  was  a  digest  of  elaborate  official  figures,  which 
an  average  speaker,  if  left  to  his  own  devices,  could 
hardly  have  collected  in  a  twelvemonth,  but  which 
when  thus  tabulated  he  could  master  in  a  couple  of 
days. 

Many  of  these  monographs,  as  I  know,  were  used 
in  practical  controversy ;  but  the  Conservative  party, 
as  a  whole — this  is  my  strong  impression — was  but 

332 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

partly  awake  to  the  importance  of  statistics  as  a 
basis  of  political  argument.  The  use  of  systematic 
statistics  was  at  that  time  left  to  Socialists,  and  wild 
misstatements  as  to  figures  formed  at  that  time  their 
principal  and  most  effective  weapon.  The  issue  of 
these  monographs  was  continued  till  the  outbreak 
of  the  recent  war,  when  conditions  were  so  suddenly 
and  so  completely  changed  that  the  then  continu- 
ance of  the  monographs  would  not  have  been  appro- 
priate, even  if  it  had  not  been  rendered  impossible. 
Being,  however,  unfit  for  active  service,  I  devoted 
myself  to  a  volume  applicable,  so  I  hoped,  to  condi- 
tions which  were  bound  to  arise  after  the  war  was 
over.  This  volume  was  The  Limits  of  Pure  Democ- 
racy, to  the  composition  of  which  I  devoted  the 
labor  of  four  years.  It  has  gone  through  four  edi- 
tions. A  translation  of  it  has  been  published  in 
France.  Increased  costs  of  production  have  ren- 
dered a  price  necessary  which  would  once  have  been 
thought  prohibitive,  but  if  conditions  improve  the 
intention  is  to  reissue  it  in  a  cheaper  form,  when 
certain  of  its  arguments  will  be  illustrated  by  events 
which  have  taken  place  since  its  last  page  was 
completed. 

Much  of  the  matter  contained  in  the  "Statistical 
Monographs"  was  condensed  by  me  in  a  volume 
called  Social  Reform.  This  was  a  study,  more 
minute  and  extensive  than  any  which  I  had  at- 
tempted before,  of  the  income  of  this  country  and 

333 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

its  distribution  among  various  classes  of  the  popu- 
lation, not  only  as  they  were  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  but  also  as  they  were  in  the  earlier 
years  of  the  nineteenth.  My  authorities  with  regard 
to  the  latter  were  certain  elaborate  but  little  known 
official  papers  showing  the  results  of  the  income  tax 
of  the  year  1801.  These  returns,  by  means  of  a 
minute  classification,  show  the  number  of  incomes 
from  those  between  £60  and  £70  up  to  those  ex- 
ceeding £5,000,  the  upshot  being  that  the  masses — • 
manual  and  other  wage-workers — were  enjoying 
just  before  the  war  an  average  income  per  head 
more  than  double  that  which  would  have  been  pos- 
sible a  hundred  years  ago  had  the  entire  income  of 
the  country — the  incomes  of  rich  and  poor  alike — • 
been  then  divided  in  equal  shares  among  everybody. 
This  same  general  fact  had  been  broadly  insisted  on 
in  Labor  and  the  Popular  Welfare.  It  was  here 
demonstrated  in  detail  by  official  records,  to  which 
I  had  not  had  access  at  the  time  when  I  wrote  that 
volume,  and  of  the  very  existence  of  which  most 
politicians  are  probably  unaware  to-day.  Social 
Reform  was,  however,  published  at  an  unlucky  mo- 
ment. It  had  not  reached  more  than  a  small  number 
of  readers  before  the  war,  for  a  time,  put  a  stop  to 
economic  thought,  and  left  men  to  illustrate  eco- 
nomic principles  by  action,  thereby  providing  fresh 
data  for  economic  theory  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  AUTHOR'S  WORKS  SUMMARIZED 

A  Boy's  Conservatism — Poetic  Ambitions — The  Philosophy  of 
Religious  Belief — The  Philosophy  of  Industrial  Conservatism 
— Intellectual  Torpor  of  Conservatives — Final  Treatises  and 
Fiction. 

I  BEG  AN  these  memoirs  with  observing  that  they 
are  in  part  a  mere  series  of  sketches  and  social 
anecdotes  strung  on  the  thread  of  the  writer's 
own  experiences,  and  as  such  illustrating  the  tenor 
of  his  social  and  mental  life,  but  that  in  part  they 
are  illustrative  in  a  wider  sense  than  this.  His 
literary  activities  may  be  looked  on  as  exemplifying 
the  moral  and  social  reactions  of  a  large  number  of 
persons,  to  the  great  changes  and  movements  in 
thought  and  in  social  politics  by  which  the  aspect  of 
the  world  has  been  affected,  both  for  them  and  him, 
from  the  middle  years  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria 
onward.  Regarding  myself,  then,  as  more  or  less  of 
a  type,  and  reviewing  my  own  activities  as  circum- 
stances have  called  them  into  play  and  as  these 
memoirs  record  them,  I  may  briefly  redescribe 
them,  and  indicate  their  sequence  thus. 

Having  been  born  and  brought  up  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  strict  Conservative  tradition — con- 
servative in  a  religious  and  social  sense  alike — I  had 
unconsciously  assumed  in  effect,  if  not  in  so  many 

335 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

words,  that  any  revolt  or  protest  against  the  estab- 
lished order  was  indeed  an  impertinence,  but  was 
otherwise  of  no  great  import.  Accordingly,  my  tem- 
perament being  that  of  an  instinctive  poet,  the  object 
of  my  earliest  ambitions  was  to  effect  within  a  very 
limited  circle  (for  the  idea  of  popular  literature  never 
entered  my  head)  a  radical  change  in  the  poetic 
taste  of  England,  and  restore  it  to  what  it  had  been 
in  the  classical  age  of  Pope.  But,  as  I  left  child- 
hood behind  me  and  approached  maturer  youth  I 
gradually  came  to  realize  that  the  whole  order  of 
things — literary,  religious,  and  social — which  the 
classical  poetry  assumed,  and  which  I  had  previously 
taken  as  impregnable,  was  being  assailed  by  forces 
which  it  was  impossible  any  longer  to  ignore.  Threats 
of  social  change,  indeed,  in  any  radical  sense  con- 
tinued for  a  long  time  to  affect  me  merely  as  vague 
noises  in  the  street,  which  would  now  and  again 
interrupt  polite  conversation,  and  presently  die 
away,  having  seriously  altered  nothing;  but  the 
attack  on  orthodox  religion  seemed  to  me  much 
more  menacing,  and  was  rarely  absent  from  the 
sphere  of  my  adolescent  thought.  The  attacking 
parties  I  still  looked  on  as  ludicrous,  but  I  began  to 
fear  them  as  formidable;  and  they  were  for  me 
rendered  more  formidable  still  by  the  very  un- 
fortunate fact  that  the  defenders  of  orthodoxy 
seemed  to  me,  in  respect  of  their  tactics,  to  be  hardly 
less  ludicrous  than  their  opponents.  The  only  way 
in  which  the  former  could  successfully  make  good 

336 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

their  defense  was — such  was  my  conclusion — by 
appeal  to  common  experience:  by  showing  how 
supernatural  religion  was  implicit  in  all  civilized 
life,  and  how  grotesque  and  tragic  would  be  the  ruin 
in  which  such  life  would  collapse  if  supernatural 
faith  were  eliminated. 

Such,  as  I  have  explained  already,  was  the  moral 
of  my  four  early  books,  The  New  Republic,  The  New 
Paul  and  Virginia,  Is  Life  Worth  Living?  and  A 
Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  All  these  at- 
tempts at  attacking  modern  atheistic  philosophy 
were  based  on  a  demonstration  of  its  results,  and 
appealed  not  so  much  to  pure  religious  emotion  as 
to  the  intellect,  a  sense  of  humor,  and  what  is  called 
a  knowledge  of  the  world. 

The  writing  of  these  works,  the  first  of  which  I 
had  begun  while  I  was  still  an  undergraduate,  oc- 
cupied about  six  or  seven  years.  Meanwhile,  side 
by  side  with  the  preaching  of  atheism  in  religion  and 
morals,  a  growth  had  become  apparent  in  the  preach- 
ing of  extreme  democracy  or  Socialist  Radicalism  in 
politics,  a  preaching  of  which  Bright  was  in  this 
country  the  precursor,  and  which  first  came  to  a  head 
between  the  years  1880  and  1900,  in  the  writings  of 
Henry  George  and  the  English  followers  of  Marx. 
What  I  looked  on  as  the  fallacies  of  these  new  po- 
litical gospels  seemed  to  me  no  less  dangerous,  and 
also  no  less  absurd,  than  those  which  I  had  previously 
attacked  in  the  gospel  of  atheistic  philosophy,  and 
my  attention  being  forcibly  diverted  from  religious 

337 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

problems  to  social,  I  devoted  myself  to  the  writing  of 
my  first  political  work,  Social  Equality  (published 
1882),  in  which  all  questions  of  religion  were  for  the 
moment  set  aside.  In  my  novel  The  Old  Order 
Changes,  published  four  or  five  years  later,  the 
religious  problem  and  the  social  problem  are  united, 
and  an  attempt  is  made  to  suggest  the  general  terms 
on  which  the  ideals  of  a  true  Conservatism  may  be 
harmonized  with  those  of  an  enlightened  Socialism. 
As  a  result  of  my  political  writings,  I  was  asked,  and 
with  certain  reservations  I  consented,  to  become  a 
candidate  for  a  Scotch  constituency. 

Between  the  years  1890  and  1895  I  turned 
again  to  social  politics  pure  and  simple  in  two 
books,  the  first  of  which  was  Labor  and  the 
Popular  Welfare,  the  second  being  Aristocracy  and 
Evolution. 

My  dealings  with  social  politics  being  for  the 
time  exhausted,  I  devoted  about  five  years — 1895  to 
1900 — to  the  composition  of  three  novels,  A  Human 
Document,  The  Heart  of  Life,  and  The  Individualist, 
which  were  studies  of  the  relation  of  religion  to  the 
passions,  feelings,  and  foibles  of  which  for  most  men 
the  experiences  of  life  consist. 

Between  the  years  1900  and  1907  I  published  four 
works  on  the  relation  of  religious  dogmas  to  phi- 
losophy and  scientific  knowledge — namely,  Doctrine 
and  Doctrinal  Disruption — this  volume  relating  to 
the  Anglican  controversies  of  the  time — Religion 
as  a  Credible  Doctrine,  The  Veil  of  the  Temple,  and 

338 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  Reconstruction  of  Belief,  to  which  may  be  added 
a  novel  called  An  Immortal  Soul.1 

As  a  result  of  the  attention  excited  by  these  or  by 
certain  of  these  books,  I  was  in  the  year  1907  invited 
to  visit  America  and  deliver  a  series  of  addresses  on 
the  Socialist  propaganda  of  the  day.  These  ad- 
dresses were  presently  rewritten  and  published  in  a 
volume  called  A  Critical  Examination  of  Socialism. 

Between  that  time  and  the  outbreak  of  the  recent 
war  I  played  an  active  part,  together  with  other 
persons,  in  devising  and  setting  on  foot  certain 
schemes  of  anti-Socialist  propaganda  in  this  coun- 
try. Most  of  my  own  efforts  I  devoted  to  the  col- 
lection and  promulgation  of  sound  social  statistics, 
especially  those  relating  to  the  current  distribution 
of  wealth,  and  I  may  here  mention,  without  even 
suggesting  a  name,  that  I  discussed  the  importance 
of  such  statistics  with  a  leading  Conservative  states- 
man, who,  expressing  his  sympathy  with  my  views, 
added  at  the  same  time  that,  so  far  as  the  constitu- 
tion of  his  own  mind  was  concerned,  they  were  not 
temperamentally  his  own.  "To  me,"  he  said, 
"columns  of  figures  are  merely  so  many  clouds." 
I  answered,  "That  may  be;  but  they  are  clouds 
which,  when  taken  together,  make  not  clouds,  but 
lightning." 


lThis  work,  later  in  date  than  the  preceding,  deals  with  the 
religious  difficulties  arising  from  the  phenomena  of  multiple  per- 
sonality, a  subject  which  was  then  being  widely  discussed  in  England, 
on  the  Continent,  and  in  America. 

339 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Anyhow,  by  the  outbreak  of  war  these  schemes 
were  suspended,  and  changed  conditions  may  now 
make  methods  other  than  those  which  seemed  then 
appropriate  necessary.  But,  as  for  myself,  the  first 
four  years  of  war-time  I  devoted  entirely  to  the 
production  of  a  new  volume,  The  Limits  of  Pure 
Democracy,  of  which  a  French  translation  is  being 
issued,  and  which  may,  I  hope,  prove  useful  to  sober 
conservatives  of  more  than  one  school  and  coun- 
try, as  it  aims  at  establishing  a  formula  acceptable, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  to  persons  who  are  at  present 
adversaries. 

In  addition  to  the  works  here  mentioned,  two 
volumes  have  been  published  of  Collected  Essays,  on 
which  certain  of  the  works  just  mentioned  are  based. 
I  have  further  published,  besides  my  little  book  on 
Cyprus,  two  short  volumes  of  verse,  and  a  poem  of 
which  I  shall  speak  presently,  called  Lucretius  on 
Life  and  Death.  All  these  works  indicate,  if  taken 
together,  the  nature  of  the  fallacies — intellectual, 
religious,  and  social — which  have  in  succession  pro- 
voked them,  which  have  not  yet  exhausted  them- 
selves, and  which  it  has  been  the  ambition  of  the 
writer  to  discredit  or  modify. 

Such  have  been  the  activities  which,  devoted  to  a 
continuous  and  developing  purpose,  have  thus  far 
occupied  a  writer  whose  life  has  been  spent  in  alter- 
nations of  solitude  and  the  life  of  society.  The 
latter,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  resembles  that  of 
many  other  persons  to  whom  society  is  naturally 

340 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

agreeable  and  have  had  the  opportunity  of  enjoying 
it.  It  is  a  life  which  for  him  has  remained  sub- 
stantially the  same  from  his  early  youth  onward, 
except  for  the  fact  that  with  time  his  social  experi- 
ences have  widened,  that  they  have  been  varied  by 
travels  more  or  less  extensive,  and  that  they  might 
have  been  varied  also  by  the  vicissitudes  of  political 
publicity  had  not  his  disposition  inclined  him,  having 
had  some  taste  of  both,  to  the  methods  of  literature 
rather  than  to  those  of  the  party  platform. 

Which  method  is  the  best  for  one  who,  inspired  by 
tenacious  and  interconnected  convictions,  desires  to 
make  these  prevail  is  a  question  which  different 
people  will  answer  in  different  ways.  But  let  us 
make  one  supposition.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  per- 
son, such,  for  instance,  as  myself,  who  has  dealt  with 
ideas  and  principles  in  his  opinion  fallacious  (notably 
those  connected  with  the  current  claims  of  Labor), 
should  have  so  succeeded  in  influencing  the  thoughts 
and  the  temper  of  his  contemporaries  that  the 
modern  strife  between  employers  and  employed 
shpuld  be  pacified,  and  arrangements  by  sober  dis- 
cussion should  render  all  strikes  needless.  Nobody 
would  deny  that  a  person  who  had  brought  about 
this  result  had  performed  what  would  be,  in  the 
strictest  sense,  an  action — an  action  of  the  most 
practical  and  signally  important  kind,  and  it  would 
be  no  less  practical  if  accomplished  by  means  of 
literature  than  it  would  be  if  accomplished  by  the 
ingenuity  of  cabinets  or  select  committees.  Such 
23 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

being  the  case,  then,  the  reflection  will  here  suggest 
itself  that  literature  and  action  are  by  many  critics 
of  life  constantly  spoken  of  as  though  they  were 
contrasted  or  antithetic  things.  It  will  not  be  in- 
appropriate here,  as  a  conclusion  to  these  memoirs,  to 
consider  how  far,  or  in  what  sense,  this  contrast  is 
valid. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

LITERATURE   AND   ACTION 

Literature  as  Speech  Made  Permanent — All  Written  Speech  Not 
Literature — The  Essence  of  Literature  for  Its  Own  Sake — 
Prose  as  a  Fine  Art — Some  Interesting  Aspects  of  Literature 
as  an  End  in  Itself — Their  Comparative  Triviality — No  Litera- 
ture Great  Which  Is  Not  More  Than  Literature — Literature 
as  a  Vehicle  of  Religion — Lucretius — The  Reconstruction  of 
Belief. 

IF  we  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  things,  litera- 
ture, needless  to  say,  is  a  development  of  ordinary- 
speech.  It  is  speech  which  has  been  made  per- 
manent, partly,  indeed,  by  oral  tradition,  but 
mainly  by  the  art  of  writing.  Without  speech  no 
human  co-operation,  other  than  the  rudest,  would 
be  possible.  Some  men  at  least  must  speak  so  as  to 
organize  the  tasks  of  others,  and  the  latter  must 
understand  speech  so  as  to  do  what  the  former  bid 
them.  When  the  Deity  determined  to  confound 
the  builders  of  Babel,  or,  in  other  words,  to  render 
co-operative  work  impossible,  he  did  not  cut  off  their 
hands,  but  he  virtually  took  speech  away  from  them, 
by  rendering  the  language  of  each  unintelligible  to 
all  the  rest.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  tasks  the  na- 
ture of  which  is  highly  complex,  it  is  necessary  not 
only  that  the  organizers  should  make  use  of  speech, 
but  also  that  what  they  speak  should  systematically 

343 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

be  written  down.  The  writing  down,  indeed,  is 
often  the  most  important  part  of  the  matter,  as  in 
the  case  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  or  of  the  delicate 
and  elaborate  formulae  on  which  depends  the  pro- 
duction of  chemicals  or  of  great  ships. 

If  written  speech,  then,  of  kinds  such  as  these  is 
literature,  literature  is  obviously  not  antithetic  to 
action,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  action  in  one  of  its 
most  important  forms.  To  state  the  case  thus, 
however,  is  stating  no  more  than  half  of  it.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  laws  and  chemical  formulas,  however 
carefully  written,  are  not  what  is  meant  by  literature 
in  the  common  sense  of  the  word.  Though  the 
writing  down  of  speech  may  in  such  cases  be  a  form  of 
action,  it  does  not  follow  that  all  such  written  speech 
is  literature.  Let  us  compare  the  compositions  of  a 
child,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  with  a  page  out  of  the 
Nautical  Almanac  or  a  manual  of  household  medi- 
cine. The  child's  compositions  may  intrinsically 
have  no  literary  value,  but  they  nevertheless  repre- 
sent genuine  attempts  at  literature.  A  page  from 
the  Nautical  Almanac  or  the  manual  of  household 
medicine  may  be,  for  certain  purposes,  of  the  highest 
value  imaginable,  but  the  test  of  literary  beauty 
would  be  the  last  test  we  should  apply  to  them. 

What,  then,  is  the  primary  difference  between 
written  words  that  are  literature  and  written  words 
that  are  not?  The  primary  difference  relates  to  the 
objects  at  which  severally  the  writers  aim  or  the 
motive  by  which  they  are  impelled  to  write,  The 

344 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

child  writes  solely  because  literary  composition  is  a 
pleasure  to  him,  as  for  the  sake  of  a  similar  pleasure 
another  child  takes  to  a  piano.  The  astronomer 
and  the  doctor  write  to  help  men  in  navigating 
ships  or  mothers  in  dosing  babies.  Between  written 
language  which  is  not  literature  and  written  language 
which  is  the  initial  difference  is  this:  that  for  the 
writers  written  language  is,  in  the  first  case,  some- 
thing which  it  is  not  in  the  second.  In  the  first  case, 
the  writer's  concern  with  language,  and  the  sole 
interest  which  written  language  has  for  him,  are 
things  which  have  no  dependence  on  the  merits  of 
written  language  as  such,  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  a 
means  of  accomplishing  ulterior  objects,  with  which 
otherwise  the  mere  merits  of  language  have  nothing 
at  all  to  do.  Sound  injunctions  to  a  nurse,  provided 
that  their  meaning  was  clear,  would  have  far  greater 
value  in  a  hospital  than  mistaken  injunctions  written 
with  a  grace  or  majesty  worthy  of  Plato  or  Tacitus. 
In  the  second  case,  writing  is  a  feat  the  successful 
achievement  of  which  is,  for  the  writer,  an  object 
and  a  pleasure  in  itself;  and  how  far  success  is 
achieved  by  him  depends  not  alone  on  the  pleasure 
which  he  derives  from  his  own  performances  per- 
sonally, but  also,  and  we  may  say  mainly,  on  the 
quantity  of  kindred  pleasure  which  his  writing 
communicates  to  his  readers. 

These  observations  become  more  and  more  true 
and  pungent  in  proportion  as  language  becomes  a 
more  complex  instrument,  its  progress  resembling 

345 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  evolution  of  an  organ  from  a  shepherd's  pipe. 
As  it  thus  progresses,  its  delicate  possibilities  of 
melody,  metaphor,  and  subtle  emphasis  increase,  and 
masters  of  the  literary  art  enchant  with  ever  new 
surprises  multitudes  who  have  no  capacity  for  the 
literary  art  themselves.  So  far,  then,  as  literature 
is  in  this  sense  literature  for  its  own  sake,  the  con- 
trast between  literature  and  action  is,  with  certain 
exceptions,  justified.  Exceptions,  however,  to  this 
rule  exist,  and  these,  briefly  stated,  are  as  follows. 
When  a  writer  writes  a  book — let  us  say,  for  ex- 
ample, a  novel — the  object  of  which  is  to  give 
pleasure,  his  primary  object  in  writing  it  may  be 
either  to  please  himself  or  else  to  make  money  by 
ministering  to  the  taste  of  others.  The  importance 
of  this  distinction  has  been  clearly  brought  out  by 
Tolstoy,  who  defines  art,  and  literary  art  in  par- 
ticular, as  a  means  by  which  the  artist  contrives  to 
arouse  in  others  emotions  and  interests  which  he  has 
experienced  in  his  own  person.  Such  being  the 
case,  then,  there  are,  says  Tolstoy,  many  works 
which  partake  of  the  nature  of  literature,  but  which 
are  not  examples  of  true  literary  art.  Such,  accord- 
ing to  him,  are  our  modern  detective  novels,  or  any 
novels  the  interests  of  which  depend  on  the  solution 
of  a  mystery,  the  reason  being  that  the  writer  is 
acquainted  with  the  mystery  at  starting,  and  ex- 
periences himself  no  emotion  whatever  with  regard 
to  it.  His  sole  object  is  to  titillate  an  emotion  in 
others  which  he  does  not  himself  share,  and  from 

346 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

which,  indeed,  he  is,  by  the  nature  of  the  case,  pre- 
cluded. This  is  a  criticism  which  might  doubtless 
be  pressed  too  far;  but  it  is  within  limits  fruitful, 
and,  bearing  it  here  in  mind,  we  may  say  that 
literature,  if  we  take  it  in  its  pure  form  and  regard 
it  as  an  end  in  itself,  is  language,  as  used  to  express 
the  personal  emotions  or  personal  convictions  of  the 
writer,  and  is  raised  by  him  to  such  a  pitch  of  beauty, 
of  strength  or  of  delicacy  that  it  is  a  source  of  pleasure 
to  large  classes  of  mankind  apart  from  all  thoughts 
of  relationship,  if  any,  to  ulterior  objects. 

Thus  pure  literature,  as  legitimately  contrasted 
with  action,  is  a  matter  of  great  interest  for  a  large 
number  of  people  whom  nobody  would  describe  as 
literary  or  as  persons  of  letters  otherwise;  and  I 
may,  therefore,  say  something  of  pure  literature  as 
estimated  more  particularly  by  myself. 

Let  me  begin  with  prose,  which,  merely  as  a 
pleasurable  art,  instinct  has  urged  me,  from  my 
earliest  days,  to  cultivate.  Of  what  good  prose  is  I 
have  always  had  clear  notions;  and,  whether  I  have 
been  successful  in  my  efforts  to  achieve  it  or  not,  my 
personal  experience  of  the  process  may  not  be  with- 
out some  interest.  My  own  experience  is  that  the 
composition  of  good  prose — prose  that  seems  good 
to  myself — is  a  process  which  requires  a  very  great 
deal  of  leisure.  True  excellence  in  prose,  so  I  have 
always  felt,  involves  many  subtle  qualities  which 
are  appreciable  by  the  reader  through  their  final 
effects  alone,  which  leave  no  trace  of  the  efforts  spent 

347 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

in  producing  them,  but  which  without  such  effort 
could  rarely  be  produced  at  all. 

As  examples  of  these  qualities  I  may  mention  a 
melody  not  too  often  resonant,  which  captivates  the 
reader's  attention,  and  is  always  producing  a  mood 
in  him  conducive  to  a  favorable  reception  of  what 
the  writer  is  anxious  to  convey.  Next  to  such 
melody  I  should  put  a  logical  adaptation  of  stress, 
or  of  emphasis  in  the  construction  of  sentences,  which 
corresponds  in  detail  to  the  movements  of  the 
reader's  mind — a  halt  in  the  words  occurring  where 
the  mind  halts,  a  new  rapidity  in  the  words  when  the 
mind,  satisfied  thus  far,  is.  prepared  to  resume  its 
progress.  To  these  qualities,  as  essential  to  per- 
fection in  prose,  I  might  easily  add  others;  but  these 
are  so  complex  and  comprehensive  that  they  prac- 
tically imply  the  rest. 

With  regard,  then,  to  these  essentials,  the  practice 
which  I  have  had  to  adopt  in  my  own  efforts  to  pro- 
duce them  has  been  more  or  less  as  follows.  The 
general  substance  of  what  I  proposed  to  say  I  have 
written  out  first  in  the  loosest  language  possible, 
without  any  regard  to  melody,  to  accuracy,  or  even 
to  correct  grammar.  I  have  then  rewritten  this 
matter,  with  a  view,  not  to  any  verbal  improve- 
ment, but  merely  to  the  rearrangement  of  ideas, 
descriptions,  or  arguments,  so  that  this  may  accord 
with  the  sequence  of  questions,  expectations,  or  emo- 
tions which  are  likely,  by  a  natural  logic,  to  arise  in 
the  reader's  mind — nothing  being  said  too  soon, 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

nothing  being  said  too  late,  and  nothing  (except  for 
the  sake  of  deliberate  emphasis)  being  said  twice 
over.  The  different  paragraphs  would  now  be  like 
so  many  stone  blocks  which  had  been  placed  in  their 
proper  positions  so  as  to  form  a  polylithic  frieze,  but 
each  of  which  still  remained  to  be  carved,  as  though 
by  a  sculptor  or  lapidary,  so  as  to  be  part  of  a  con- 
tinuous pattern  or  a  series  of  connected  figures. 
My  next  task  would  be  to  work  at  them  one  by  one, 
till  each  was  sculptured  into  an  image  of  my  own 
minute  intentions.  The  task  of  thus  carving  each 
and  fitting  it  to  its  next-door  neighbors  has  always 
been,  merely  for  its  own  sake,  exceedingly  fas- 
cinating to  myself,  but  it  has  generally  been  long  and 
slow.  Most  of  my  own  books,  when  their  general 
substance  had  been  roughly  got  into  order  by  means 
of  several  tentative  versions,  were,  paragraph  by 
paragraph,  written  again  five  or  six  times  more,  the 
corrections  each  time  growing  more  and  more  mi- 
nute, and  finally  the  clauses  and  wording  of  each 
individual  sentence  were  transposed,  or  rebalanced 
or  reworded,  whenever  such  processes  should  be 
necessary,  in  order  to  capture  some  nuance  of 
meaning  which  had  previously  eluded  me  as  a  bird 
eludes  a  fowler. 

As  an  example  of  this  process  I  may  mention  a 
single  sentence  which  occurs  in  my  little  book  on 
Cyprus.  It  is  a  sentence  belonging  to  a  description 
of  certain  morning  scenes — of  dewy  plains,  with 
peasants  moving  across  them,  and  here  and  there  a 

349 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

smoke  wreath  arising  from  burning  weeds.  The 
effect  of  these  scenes  in  some  poignant  way  was 
primitive,  and  I  was  able  at  once  to  reproduce  it  by 
saying  that  the  peasants  were  moving  like  figures  out 
of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  I  felt,  however,  that  this 
effect  was  not  produced  by  the  groups  of  peasants 
only.  I  felt  that  somehow — I  could  not  at  first  tell 
how — some  part  in  producing  it  was  played  by  the 
smoke  wreaths  also.  At  last  I  managed  to  capture 
the  suggestion,  at  first  subconscious  only,  which  had 
so  far  been  eluding  me.  I  finished  my  original  de- 
scription by  adding  the  following  words,  "The 
smoke-wreaths  were  going  up  like  the  smoke  of  the 
first  sacrifice." 

It  may  be  objected  that  prose  built  up  in  this 
elaborate  way  loses  as  much  as  it  gains,  because  it 
is  bound  to  lose  the  charm  and  the  convincing  force 
of  spontaneity.  This  may  be  so  in  some  cases,  but 
it  is  not  so  in  all.  I  have  found  myself  that,  so  far 
as  my  own  works  are  concerned,  the  passages  which 
are  easiest  to  read  are  precisely  those  which  it  has 
been  most  laborious  to  write.  And  for  this,  it  seems 
to  me,  there  is  a  very  intelligible  reason.  Half  of 
the  interests  and  emotions  which  make  up  the  sub- 
stance of  life  are  more  or  less  subconscious,  and  are, 
for  most  men,  difficult  to  identify.  One  of  the 
functions  of  pure  literature  is  to  make  the  sub- 
conscious reveal  itself.  It  is  to  make  men  know 
what  they  are,  in  addition  to  what  spontaneously 
they  feel  themselves  to  be,  but  feel  only,  without 

35° 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

clear  comprehension  of  it.  As  soon  as  a  writer,  at 
the  cost  of  whatever  labor,  manages  to  make  these 
spontaneities,  otherwise  subconscious,  intelligible, 
the  spontaneity  of  the  processes  described  by  him 
adds  itself  at  last  to  his  description. 

A  signal  example  of  this  fact  may  be  found,  not  in 
prose,  but  in  love  poems.  Most  people  can  fall  in 
love.  It  takes  no  trouble  to  do  so,  whatever  trouble 
it  may  bring  them.  If  any  human  processes  are 
spontaneous,  falling  in  love  is  one  of  them.  Most 
lovers  feel  more  than  they  know  until  great  love 
poetry  explains  it  to  them  what  they  are;  but  great 
love  poems  are  great,  not  because  they  are  com- 
posed spontaneously,  but  because  they  express  spon- 
taneities which  are  essentially  external  to  themselves. 
In  other  words,  the  achievement  of  perfection, 
whether  in  prose  or  poetry,  is  comparable  to  the  task 
of  a  piano  tuner,  who  may  spend  a  whole  morning 
in  tightening  or  relaxing  the  strings,  but  who  knows 
at  once,  when  he  gets  them,  the  minutely  precise 
tones  which  the  laws  of  music  demand. 

Whether  every  reader  will  agree  with  me  as  to 
these  questions  or  not,  they  are,  at  all  events,  exam- 
ples of  questions  purely  literary,  which  are  in  them- 
selves captivating  for  large  numbers  of  people, 
without  any  reference  to  ulterior,  or  what  are  called 
practical,  objects.  To  these  questions  I  may  add  a 
few  others,  which  have  been  specially  captivating  to 
myself. 

One  of  them  is  the  use  of  metaphor  as  an  im- 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

memorial  literary  device,  especially  in  the  case  of 
poetry.  What  is  the  psychology  of  metaphor?  Let 
us  take  an  instance  from  Tennyson,  who  in  one  of 
his  poems  speaks,  with  very  vivid  effect,  of  Mediter- 
ranean bays  as  colored  like  "the  peacock's  neck." 
The  color  of  the  bay  is  at  once  made  present  to  the 
reader's  mind.  But  why?  A  discussion  of  this 
question  occurs  in  a  dialogue  between  two  of  the 
characters  in  my  novel  The  Old  Order  Changes.  The 
poet,  urges  one  of  them,  might,  if  describing  a  pea- 
cock, have  said  with  equal  effect  that  the  peacock's 
neck  was  colored  like  a  Mediterranean  bay.  How 
is  it  that  we  gain  anything  by  comparing  one  equally 
familiar  thing  to  another?  The  secret  of  the  use  of 
metaphor  in  the  poet's  art  is,  says  the  speaker,  this. 
When  the  mind  is  at  rest  its  surface  is  alive  with 
vivid  images  which  have  settled  on  it  like  sea  birds 
on  a  rock,  but  the  moment  any  one  of  these  detects 
an  approach  on  our  part,  in  order  that  we  may 
examine  it  carefully,  its  wings  are  spread,  and  in  a 
flash  it  is  gone.  When,  however,  we  use  a  simile  in 
order  to  describe  something  which  is  obviously  our 
main  concern  (say  the  color  of  a  Mediterranean 
bay),  the  thing  which  we  are  anxious  to  describe 
acts  as  a  kind  of  stalking-horse,  which  enables  us  to 
approach  and  capture  the  thing  which  we  use  as  an 
illustration  (say  the  neck  of  a  peacock)  before  the 
peacock  so  much  as  suspects  our  neighborhood. 
We  have  it  alive  before  us,  with  all  its  feathers  glit- 
tering, and  these  throw  a  new  light  on  objects  which 

352 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

our  direct  touch  might  have  frightened  away  beyond 
the  confines  of  our  field  of  vision.  The  more  vivid 
of  the  two  objects  communicates  its  color  to  the  less 
vivid. 

Two  other  purely  literary  questions  are  discussed 
in  The  Veil  of  the  Temple,  the  first  of  these  being  as 
follows.  One  of  the  speakers  calls  attention  to  a 
criticism  which  is  often  and  justly  made  with  refer- 
ence to  many,  and  even  to  the  best  of  novels,  that, 
while  the  minor  characters  are  drawn  with  the  utmost 
skill,  the  heroes  (such  as  most  of  Scott's)  have  often 
no  characters  at  all.  The  reason,  he  says,  is  that, 
in  most  cases,  the  hero  is  not  so  much  an  individual, 
with  characteristics  peculiar  to  himself,  as  a  certain 
point  of  view,  from  which  all  the  other  characters 
and  incidents  of  the  story  are  drawn.  Or  else,  if 
some  of  these  are,  as  very  often  happens,  not  drawn 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  hero,  they  are  drawn 
from  the  point  of  view  of  some  other  ideal  spectator, 
on  whose  position,  moral  or  local,  the  whole  per- 
spective of  the  story,  mental  or  ocular,  depends. 
Let  us  take,  for  example,  a  typical  opening  scene  of 
a  kind  proverbially  frequent  in  the  novels  of  G.  P.  R. 
James.  Such  scenes  were  proverbially  described 
very  much  as  follows:  "To  the  right  lay  a  gray  wall, 
which  formed,  to  all  appearance,  the  boundary  of 
some  great  sheep  tract.  To  the  left  was  a  wood  of 
larches.  Between  these  was  a  road,  showing  so  few 
signs  of  use  that  it  might  have  been  a  relic  of  some 
almost  forgotten  world.  Proceeding  along  this  road 

353 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

on  a  late  October  evening  might  have  been  seen  three 
horsemen,  of  imperfectly  distinguishable,  yet  vaguely 
sinister,  aspect."  In  the  absence  of  an  ideal  spec- 
tator, who  is  tacitly  identified  with  the  novelist,  his 
hero,  or  his  reader,  such  a  description  would  mean 
very  little  more  than  nothing.  There  would  be  no 
left  or  right  unless  for  a  supposed  spectator  standing 
in  a  particular  place  and  looking  in  a  particular  di- 
rection. The  aspect  of  the  horsemen  could  not  be 
sinister  or  indistinguishable  unless  there  were  an 
assumed  man  whose  eyes  were  unable  to  distin- 
guish it. 

The  argument  here  in  question  will  carry  us  on  to 
certain  kindred  problems,  connected  likewise  with 
the  novelist's  art,  which  are  these:  The  necessary 
assumption  of  the  author  as  ideal  spectator  being 
given,  a  question  arises  with  regard  to  the  range  of 
vision  which,  in  his  capacity  of  spectator,  the 
novelist  professes  to  possess.  Many  novelists  mar 
the  effect  of  their  work — and  among  these  Thackeray 
is  notable — by  adopting  an  attitude  which  in  this 
respect  is  constantly  vacillating.  Sometimes  it  is 
one  of  omniscience,  sometimes  of  blind  perplexity. 
At  one  time  he  describes  the  inmost  thoughts  of  his 
characters  which  are  suffered  or  pursued  in  secret,  as 
though  he  could  see  through  everything.  At  an- 
other time  he  will  startle  the  reader  with  some  such 
question  as  this:  "Who  shall  dare  to  say — I  cer- 
tainly cannot — what  at  that  solemn  moment  the 
lad's  real  reflections  were?"  A  partial  escape  from 

354 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

the  sense  of  unreality  which  alternations  like  these 
produce  is  to  be  found  in  the  method  which  many 
novelists  have  adopted — namely,  that  of  dividing 
the  story  into  so  many  separate  parts,  these  being 
told  in  succession  by  so  many  different  characters, 
each  recording  events  as  wholly  seen  from  the  point 
of  his  own  unchanged  perspective.  Such  is  the 
method  adopted  by  Wilkie  Collins  in  The  Woman  in 
White,  for  example.  The  danger  of  this  artifice  is 
that  it  tends  to  be  too  apparent.  The  most  logically 
complete  escape  from  the  difficulties  which  we  are 
here  glancing  at  is  to  be  found,  no  doubt,  in  the 
method  of  autobiography  in  a  single  and  undivided 
form;  unless  indeed  the  assumption  of  absolute 
omniscience  on  the  author's  part  can  be  used  with  a 
rigid  consistency  which  it  very  rarely  exhibits. 

Another  question  of  a  purely  literary  kind,  reflec- 
tion on  which  is  to  me,  at  least,  pleasurable  (though 
many  persons  of  literary  taste  may,  perhaps,  regard 
it  as  a  bore),  is  the  relation  of  modern  prosody  to 
ancient,  and  more  particularly  to  Latin.  It  has 
always  seemed  to  me  that  the  lengthening  and 
shortening  of  syllables  according  to  their  position, 
as  happens  in  classical  Latin,  with  regard  to  the 
syllables  that  follow  them,  must  always  have  cor- 
responded with  the  stresses  or  absence  of  stress 
which  would  naturally  be  made  apparent  by  the 
voice  of  an  ideal  reciter;  and  to  me,  as  to  some  other 
people,  the  question  has  proved  amusing  of  how  far 
in  English  verse  Latin  prosody  could  be  reproduced. 

355 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Many  attempts  have  been  made  at  deciding  this 
question  by  experiments.  The  most  remarkable  of 
these  are  two  which  were  made  by  Tennyson.  One 
of  them,  called  "Hendecasyllabics,"  is  little  more 
than  a  trick  played  with  extreme  skill,  and  in  no 
serious  sense  does  it  merit  the  name  of  poetry.  The 
other,  "An  Ode  to  Milton,"  is  no  less  charming  as  a 
poem  than  as  a  conquest  over  technical  difficulties. 
Let  us  take  the  first  stanza: 

Oh,  mighty-mouthed  inventor  of  harmonies, 
Oh,  skilled  to  sing  of  time  and  eternity, 

God-gifted  organ  voice  of  England, 
Milton  a  name  to  resound  for  ages. 

Here  the  stresses  which  the  meaning  of  the  Eng- 
lish verse  demands  fall  exclusively  on  syllables 
which  would,  according  to  Latin  prosody,  be  long; 
but  there  are  one  or  two  syllables  which  in  Latin 
verse  would  be  long  (such  as  "of  "  in  the  second  line) 
which  invite  no  stress  in  the  English — which  do  not, 
indeed,  admit  of  it — and  must  for  that  reason  be 
treated  by  an  English  reader  as  short.  Aiming  at 
greater  completeness,  but  otherwise  in  a  manner 
very  much  less  ambitious,  I  attempted  an  experi- 
ment of  a  similar  kind  myself,  consisting  of  a  few 
hexameters,  in  which  not  only  do  the  natural  stresses 
fall,  and  fall  exclusively,  on  syllables  which  in 
Latin  would  be  long,  but  in  which  also  every 
syllable  would  be  emphasized  by  an  English  reciter 
with  a  natural  stress  corresponding  to  it.  These 

356 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

hexameters  were  a  metrical  amplification  of  an  ad- 
vertisement which  figures  prominently  in  the  car- 
riages of  the  Tube  Railway,  proclaiming  the  charms 
of  a  suburb  called  Sudbury  Town,  and  remarkable 
for  its  surrounding  pine  woods.  The  moment  I 
read  the  words  "Sudbury  Town"  I  recognized  in 
them  the  beginning  of  a  hexameter  classically  pure; 
and  after  many  abortive  attempts  I  worked  out  a 
sequel — a  very  short  one — as  follows: 

Sudbury  Town  stands  here.  In  an  old-world  region  around  it 
Tall,  dark  pines,  like  spires,  with  above  them  a  murmur  of 

umbrage, 
Guard  for  us  all  deep   peace.    Such  peace  may  the  weary 

suburbans 
Know  not  in  even  a  dream.    These,  these  will  an  omnibus 

always, 

Ev'n  as  they  sink  to  a  doze  just  earned  by  the  toil  of  a  daytime, 
Rouse,  or  a  horse-drawn  dray,  too  huge  to  be  borne  by  an  Atlas, 
Shakes  all  walls,  all  roofs,  with  a  sound  more  loud  than  an 

earthquake.1 


1  In  connection  with  the  above  questions,  I  may  mention  certain 
others,  all  bearing  on  the  relation  of  prose  to  poetry.  It  was  said 
of  Plutarch  that  his  sense  of  sound  was  so  delicate  that  if  it  had 
been  necessary  for  the  sake  of  mere  verbal  melody,  he  would  have 
made  Caesar  kill  Brutus  instead  of  Brutus  killing  Caesar.  Closely 
bearing  on  this  criticism  ^s  the  fact  that  in  old  English  tragedies 
from  the  days  of  Dryden  onward  a  careful  reader  will  note  that, 
while  parts  of  the  dialogue  are  in  blank  verse  and  parts  in  prose, 
the  writers  themselves  show,  in  many  cases,  a  very  defective  appre- 
ciation of  where  verse  ends  and  prose  begins,  many  passages  which 
are  printed  as  prose  being  really  unconscious  verse.  An  interesting 
example  of  this  may  be  found  in  a  passage  from  Bacon's  Essays, 
which  Macaulay  quotes  as  an  example  of  the  literary  altitude  to 
which  Bacon's  prose  could  rise.  This  passage  is  in  reality  blank 
verse  pure  and  simple.  It  is  as  follows: 
24  357 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

The  moral  of  such  experiments  seems  to  me  to  be 
this :  that  even  if  ancient  prosody,  such  as  that  of  the 
Virgilian  hexameter,  could  be  naturalized  completely 
in  English,  the  emotional  effect  of  the  meter  would 
in  the  two  languages  be  different,  and  that  Anglo- 
Latin  hexameters  would,  with  very  rare  exceptions, 
mean  no  more  than  successes  in  a  graceful  and  very 
difficult  game.  It  is  indeed  for  that  very  reason 
that  I  mention  this  question  here.  It  is  a  question 
of  pure  literature  or  of  purely  literary  form.  As 
such,  it  has  proved  fascinating  to  many  highly  cul- 
tivated persons;  yet  even  by  such  persons  them- 
selves it  will  not  be  seriously  regarded  as  much 
better  than  trivial.  But  this  is  not  all.  From  this 
consideration  we  are  led  on  to  another.  If  the 
problems  of  Anglo-Classical  prosody  are  trivial  even 
for  those  who  happen  to  find  them  entertaining, 
may  not  all  literature,  even  the  highest,  when  cul- 
tivated for  its  own  sake  only,  be,  from  certain  points 
of  view,  a  triviality  also? 

According  to  differences  of  taste  and  tempera- 
ment, different  persons  will  answer  this  question 


Virtue  is  like  precious  odors, 
Most  fragrant  when  they  are  incensed  or  crushed. 
Prosperity  doth  best  discover  vice. 
Adversity  doth  best  discover  virtue. 

This  passage,  with  Macaulay's  comments  on  it,  may  be  commended 
to  the  notice  of  those  who  contend  that  Bacon  could  not  have  written 
Shakespeare,  because  Bacon's  acknowledged  verses  are  of  a  very 
inferior  kind.  If  they  look  in  Bacon's  prose  for  verse  which  was 
unacknowledged,  and  which  was  unintended  by  himself,  they  may 
find  reason  for  modifying  this  argument. 

3S8 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

differently.  Since  I  am  not  entering  here  on  any 
formal  argument,  but  am  merely  recording  my  own 
individual  views,  I  should,  speaking  for  myself, 
answer  this  question  in  the  affirmative.  I  may, 
indeed,  confess  that  the  mere  artist  in  literature — 
the  person  for  whom  literature,  as  such,  is  the  main 
interest  in  life — is  a  person  for  whom  secretly  I  have 
always  felt  some  contempt,  even  though,  for  myself 
personally,  this  magical  triviality  has  been  one  of 
life's  chief  seductions. 

The  content  and  significance  of  such  a  feeling  are 
presented  in  concrete  form  by  such  institutions  as 
authors'  or  writers'  clubs.  In  London  and  in  other 
capitals  so  many  of  these  have  been  established,  and 
continue  to  flourish,  that  they  obviously  perform 
certain  useful  and  welcome  functions;  but  my  own 
criticism  would  be  that  to  call  them  clubs  for  "au- 
thors" or  "writers"  is  a  misnomer  which  fails  to 
particularize  the  real  basis  of  membership.  In  the 
modern  world,  no  doubt,  all  writers,  merely  as 
writers,  have  certain  interests  in  common.  They 
have,  in  the  first  place,  to  get  their  works  published, 
and  the  business  of  publication  is  a  very  complex 
process,  which  has  necessarily  a  legal  and  financial 
side.  Questions  are  inevitably  involved  of  financial 
loss  or  gain,  and  even  writers  who  are  indifferent  to 
profit,  and  are  ready  to  bear  a  loss,  will  desire  to  be 
treated  fairly.  They  may  be  ready  to  bear  a  loss, 
but  not  a  loss  which  is  inequitable,  and  if  any  gain 
should  ensue,  they  will  desire  an  equitable  share  of 

359 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

it.  In  connection  with  such  matters,  authors'  clubs 
may  perform  many  useful  offices  for  their  members. 
In  so  far,  however,  as  their  functions  are  limited  to 
offices  such  as  these  the  proper  name  for  them  would 
be  not  clubs,  but  agencies.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
the  modern  world  authorship  to  a  great  extent  is  a 
systematic  writing  for  journals.  It  has  to  be  per- 
formed, in  respect  both  of  time  and  other  condi- 
tions, in  accordance  with  strict  arrangements  be- 
tween the  writers  themselves  and  the  officials 
by  whom,  whether  as  editors  or  owners,  these 
journals  are  managed.  For  this  reason  persons 
who  practice  journalism — daily  journalism  in  par- 
ticular— will  probably  be  persons  more  or  less 
similar  in  their  habits,  and  clubs  for  admission  to 
which  the  main  qualification  consists  in  the  fact  of 
authorship  may  provide  them  with  special  con- 
veniences which  they  one  and  all  desire.  But  for 
persons  whose  literary  pursuits  are  carried  on  in 
isolation,  and  who  aim  at  expressing  by  authorship 
no  thoughts  or  no  sentiments  but  their  own,  it  seems 
to  me  that  a  club  for  authors  or  writers  as  such  repre- 
sents a  conception  as  wrong  as  would  that  of  a  club 
for  speakers  as  such  or  for  politicians  as  such. 
What  bond  of  union  would  there  be  between  a  Tory 
and  a  ferocious  Democrat  if  they  neither  of  them  put 
pen  to  paper — if  they  were  not  authors  at  all? 
They  would  keep,  so  far  as  was  possible,  to  different 
sides  of  the  street.  Why,  then,  should  they  wish  to 
meet  in  a  club  coffee  room  and  lunch  at  adjacent 

360 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

tables,  simply  because  each,  besides  holding  opinions 
absolutely  odious  to  the  other,  should,  instead  of 
keeping  them  to  himself,  endeavor  to  disseminate 
them  by  writing  among  as  many  of  his  fellow 
creatures  as  was  possible? 

It  may  be  said  that  two  such  men  might  very  well 
wish  to  do  so  because,  though  what  each  expressed 
was  odious  to  the  other  in  itself,  each  was  a  con- 
summate master  of  literary  art  in  expressing  it,  and 
each  admired,  and  was  aware  of,  the  presence  of  this 
technical  mastery  in  the  other.  Now,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  this,  in  numerous  cases,  may  be  true.  Indeed, 
such  an  admission  is  the  very  point  from  which  the 
present  argument  started.  Pure  literature,  as  such, 
is,  no  doubt,  susceptible  of  consummate  beauties,  in 
their  natural  admiration  of  which  men  who  are  other- 
wise the  bitterest  adversaries  may  agree.  What 
does  this  admission  cover?  It  applies,  in  my  own 
opinion,  to  minor  literature  only,  though  master- 
pieces of  minor  literature  may  be  in  their  own  way 
supreme,  as  Keats  has  shown  us  in  such  poems  as 
"La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci,"  but,  as  applied  to 
literature  in  its  higher  and  greater  forms,  the  admis- 
sion fails  to  be  true,  because  it  fails  to  be  adequate. 
A  poem  by  Keats  may  be  admirable  so  far  as  it  goes, 
but  really  great  literature,  such  as  Goethe's  "Faust," 
for  example,  would  possess  but  a  minor  value  unless 
there  were  at  the  back  of  it  something  that  is  more 
than  literature.  In  the  case  of  a  poem  like  ' '  Endytn- 
ion"  the  poem  is  greater  than  the  man  who  writes 

361 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

it.  In  the  case  of  a  poem  like  "Faust"  the  man  is 
greater  than  the  poem.  Behind  the  poet  stands  the 
man  of  profound  reflection,  the  man  of  the  world, 
the  philosopher,  the  passionate  or  disillusioned  lover. 
He  is  all  of  these  before  he  is  a  literary  artist.  His 
writing  is  only  the  vehicle  by  which  he  communi- 
cates what  he  is  in  all  these  capacities  to  others,  and 
so  leaves  a  practical  impression  on  the  thoughts  and 
emotions  of  the  world. 

And  what  is  true  of  verse  is  more  obviously  true 
of  prose.  Of  all  prose  works  which  have  captured 
attention  by  their  mere  merits  as  literature,  no  better 
example  can  be  given  than  the  great  masterpiece  of 
Gibbon.  But  though  Gibbon  may  be  read  by  many 
for  the  sake  of  his  mere  literary  charm,  his  place  in 
the  world  as  a  great  writer  depends  but  in  a  secondary 
way  on  this  charm  in  itself.  He  lives  because  this 
charm  was  used  by  him  to  convey  the  results  of 
research  so  penetrating  and  comprehensive,  and 
guided  by  a  mind  so  sagacious  and  powerful,  that 
for  the  most  part  these  results  have  stood  the  test  of 
criticism,  however  keen  and  hostile;  and  in  accom- 
plishing this  feat  Gibbon  has  rendered  a  service 
which  is  still  indispensable  to  the  historical  students 
and  historical  thinkers  of  to-day,  whereas  otherwise 
his  merely  literary  merits  would  have  been  merits 
displayed  in  vain  or  relegated  to  a  literary  museum 
which  few  men  cared  to  enter. 

This  conception  of  pure  literature  as  written 
language  which  is  mainly  appreciated  for  its  own 

362 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

sake,  and  is  for  that  reason  in  a  relative  sense  trivial, 
no  doubt  widens  out  again  when  we  come  to  consider 
the  fact  that  emotion  of  some  kind  is,  in  the  last 
resort,  the  one  thing  which  gives  value  to  life.  But 
the  fact  remains  that  all  the  desirable  emotions  are 
determined  by  things  which  are  not  in  themselves 
emotions,  such  as  knowledge,  intellectual  beliefs, 
and  the  laws,  economic  and  otherwise,  which  alone 
render  a  civilized  society  possible;  and  even  the 
greatest  of  merely  literary  charms  make  great 
literature  only  in  so  far  as  they  endow  mankind 
with  fundamental  things  like  these. 

Throughout  these  memoirs  there  has  been  con- 
stant allusion  to  the  relation  borne  by  literary  ex- 
pression to  life  in  the  case  of  the  author  himself.  I 
have  said  already  that  for  mere  literature  as  such, 
and  for  its  practitioners,  I  have  from  my  youth  on- 
ward had  a  certain  feeling  of  contempt,  and  I  now 
may  explain  once  more  what,  at  least  in  my  own 
case,  such  a  feeling  really  means.  It  means,  not 
that  mere  literature  at  its  best  is  not  beautiful  and 
delightful,  but  that  it  must,  in  order  to  be  worthy 
of  a  serious  man's  devotion,  be  a  mere  part  of  some 
whole,  the  other  part  of  which  is  incomparably  the 
larger  of  the  two.  It  means  that  literature,  in  order 
to  be  great  literature,  must  at  the  same  time  be 
practically  a  form  of  action.  I  have  no  ambition 
to  impose  this  opinion  on  others.  I  would  merely 
record  it  as  an  opinion  on  which,  since  the  ending  of 
my  early  days  at  Oxford,  I  have  myself  by  instinct 

363 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

acted.  Whatever  I  have  written  I  have  written  with 
one  or  other  ulterior  object,  to  which  the  mere 
pleasure  of  literary  opposition  as  such  has  been  alto- 
gether subordinate.  Of  the  nature  of  these  objects 
I  have  said  enough  already,  but  I  may  once  again 
define  them. 

One  of  them  relates  to  religion,  to  the  quality  of 
the  lives  and  the  loves  of  ordinary  men  and  women 
as  affected  by  it,  and  also  to  metaphysics  and 
science,  in  so  far  as  they  leave,  or  do  not  leave,  the 
doctrines  of  religion  credible. 

The  second  of  these  objects  relates  to  the  existing 
conditions  of  social  and  industrial  life,  more  especially 
to  those  suggested  by  the  loosely  used  word  "Labor," 
and  the  frantic  fallacies  with  regard  to  these  by 
which  the  ideas  of  extreme  reformers  are  vitiated, 
and  from  which,  instead  of  meeting  them,  too  many 
Conservatives  shrink  in  ignominious  terror. 

With  regard  to  religion,  philosophy,  science,  and 
the  widespread  ideas  underlying  what  is  vaguely 
described  as  Socialism,  I  have  endeavored  to  dis- 
credit, or  else  to  modify,  the  views  which,  for  some- 
thing like  fifty  years,  leaders  who  are  called  "ad- 
vanced" have  been  making  more  and  more  widely 
popular.  I  have  resorted  for  this  purpose  to  the 
methods  of  fiction  and  of  formal  argument.  The 
implication  of  all  the  writings  by  which  I  have  at- 
tempted to  do  this  is  that  the  mischief,  religious, 
social,  and  political,  which  "advanced"  thought 
has  done  may  in  time,  by  a  rational  development  of 

364 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

conservative  thought,  be  undone,  and  the  true  faiths 
be  revived  on  which  the  sanctities,  the  stabilities, 
and  the  civilization  of  the  social  order  depend. 

I  have  nevertheless  always  myself  recognized, 
ever  since  early  enthusiasm  felt  the  chill  of  experi- 
ence, that  such  a  counter-revolution  must  be  slow, 
nor  have  I  ever  underrated  the  obstacles  which  cer- 
tain false  idealisms  now  at  work  in  the  world  may 
oppose  to  it.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  always  felt 
that  no  man  is  fit  to  encounter  an  adversary's  case 
successfully  unless  he  can  make  it  for  the  moment 
his  own,  unless  he  can  put  it  more  forcibly  than  the 
adversary  could  put  it  for  himself,  and  takes  account, 
not  only  of  what  the  adversary  says,  but  also  of  the 
best  that  he  might  say,  if  only  he  had  chanced  to 
think  of  it. 

On  this  principle  I  have  endeavored  myself  to 
act.  The  process,  however,  may  in  some  cases  be 
not  without  the  seeming  danger  that  the  converter, 
in  thus  arming  himself  for  his  task,  may  perform  it 
somewhat  too  thoroughly,  and  end  by  being  himself 
perverted.  He  must,  at  all  events,  go  near  to  ex- 
periencing a  sense  of  such  perversion  dramatically. 
Of  this  fact  I  have  myself  provided  an  example  in 
one  of  my  writings,  to  which  I  just  now  alluded,  and 
which  herein  differs  from  the  rest.  Having  else- 
where argued  in  defense  of  religious  faith,  as  though 
feeling  that,  through  argument  and  knowledge, 
mankind  will  some  day  recover  it,  I  wrote  the  work 
here  in  question  as  a  man  might  write  who  had  him- 

365 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

self  made  a  final — even  a  complacent — surrender  to 
the  forces  which  he  had  dreamed  of  dissipating. 

This  work  is  a  poem  called  "Lucretius  on  Life  and 
Death,"  and  was  partly  suggested  by  the  vogue 
acquired  by  Fitzgerald's  rendering  of  the  Rubaiyat 
of  Omar  Khayyam.  The  doctrine  of  Omar  is,  as 
everybody  knows,  a  doctrine  of  voluptuous  pessi- 
mism. There  is  no  life  other  than  this.  Let  us 
kiss  and  drink  while  it  lasts.  The  doctrine  of  Lu- 
cretius is  to  a  certain  extent  similar,  but  is  sterner 
and  more  intellectual  in  its  form.  I  accordingly 
selected  from  his  great  scientific  poem,  which  con- 
tains in  embryo  all  the  substance  of  the  modern 
doctrine  of  evolution,  those  passages  which  bear  on 
the  meaning  of  man's  existence.  I  arranged  these 
in  logical  order,  and  translated  or  paraphrased  them 
in  the  meter  with  which  Fitzgerald  has  familiarized 
and  fascinated  the  English  ear,  so  that  the  philosophy 
of  the  Persian  and  the  Roman  might  be  reduced  to 
something  like  a  common  denominator.  Lucretius 
is  so  far  a  pessimist  that,  under  existing  conditions, 
human  life  is  for  him  no  more  than  a  hideous  night- 
mare ;  but  he  is  so  far  an  optimist  that  he  looks  upon 
all  this  misery  as  due  to  one  removable  cause,  this 
cause  being  the  prevalence  of  one  mistaken  belief, 
which  a  true  scientific  philosophy  will  altogether 
eradicate.  The  belief  in  question  is  a  belief  in  a 
personal  God,  who  is  offended  by  the  very  nature  of 
man,  and  who  watches  with  a  wrathful  eye  by  the 

deathbed  of  each  human  creature,  in  order  to  begin 

366 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

a  torture  of  him  which  will  last  for  all  eternity. 
Man's  true  savior,  Lucretius  argues,  is  science, 
which  makes  this  belief  ridiculous  by  showing 
clearly  that  all  individual  things — human  beings 
included — are  nothing  but  atomic  aggregations, 
which,  having  been  formed  for  a  moment,  dissolve 
and  disappear  for  ever.  How,  then,  can  any 
avenging  God  be  anything  more  than  the  dis- 
tempered dream  of  children?  How  could  such  a 
God  torture  men  when  they  die,  since  as  soon  as  they 
are  dead  there  is  nothing  left  to  torture?  Let  them 
cast  this  incubus  of  irrational  fear  behind  them,  and 
the  mere  process  of  life  may  then  be  tolerable  enough. 
It  may  even,  in  a  sober  way,  be  happy.  It  certainly 
need  not  be,  as  it  now  is,  miserable;  and  at  all 
events  it  will  be  pleasing  as  a  prelude  to  the  luxury 
of  an  endless  sleep.  Of  my  own  rendering  of  the 
great  Lucretian  message,  I  may  here  give  a  few 
stanzas  as  specimens : 

Nothing  abides.    The  seas  in  delicate  haze 

Go  off.    Those  mooned  sands  forsake  their  place; 

And  where  they  are  shall  other  seas  in  turn 
Mow  with  their  sands  of  whiteness  other  bays. 

How,  then,  the  poet  asks,  shall  the  individual  man 
be  more  enduring  than  these? 

What,  shall  the  dateless  worlds  in  dust  be  blown 
Back  to  the  unremembered  and  unknown, 

And  this  frail  Thou — this  flame  of  yesterday — 
Burn  on  forlorn,  immortal  and  alone? 
367 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

What  though  there  lurks  behind  yon  veil  of  sky 
Some  fabled  Maker,  some  immortal  Spy, 

Ready  to  torture  each  poor  thing  he  made? 
Thou  canst  do  more  than  God  can.     Thou  canst  die. 

Will  not  the  thunders  of  thy  God  be  dumb 
When  thou  art  deaf  for  ever?     Can  the  sum 

Of  all  things  bruise  what  is  not?     Nay,  take  heart, 
For  where  thou  go'st  thither  no  God  can  come. 

And  no  omnipotent  wearer  of  a  crown 

Of  righteousness,  or  fiend  with  branded  frown 

Swart  from  the  pit,  shall  break  or  reach  thy  rest, 
Or  stir  thy  temples  from  the  eternal  down. 

In  writing  this  poem  I  experienced  the  full  sensa- 
tion of  having  become  a  convert  to  the  Lucretian 
gospel  myself,  against  which  throughout  my  life  it 
had  been  my  dominant  impulse  to  protest.  , 

There  are,  doubtless,  many  others  who  experience 
this  disconcerting  vicissitude — for  whom  the  deduc- 
tions of  science  as  a  moral  message  are  ludicrous, 
but  for  whom  its  homicidal  negations  prove  in  the 
end  ineluctable.  If  this  is  their  permanent,  if  this 
is  their  final  condition,  they  will  perhaps  deserve 
commiseration,  but  they  will  hardly  deserve  castiga- 
tion,  for  their  attitude  is  one  which  will  bring  its 
own  castigation  with  it.  I  can  only  hope  that  I  am 
entitled  to  the  truly  charitable  satisfaction  of  re- 
garding them  as  a  class  to  which  I  do  not  myself 
belong,  and  that  the  literary  industry  of  a  life  other- 
wise idle  may  prove  to  be  a  form  of  action,  or  rather 

368 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

a  reaction,  which,  alike  as  to  religion  and  politics, 
will  have  not  been  unserviceable  to  the  world. 

To  sum  the  matter  up,  the  Lucretian  philosophy 
of  life,  appealing  as  it  may  to  men  when  in  certain 
moods,  is  one  which,  when  submitted  to  what  Kant 
calls  the  "practical  reason,"  shrivels  up  into  an 
absurdity,  and  I  have  shown  at  length,  in  my  work 
The  Reconstruction  of  Belief,  that  this  becomes  only 
the  more  apparent  when  we  consider  the  attempts 
which  have  been  made  by  modern  thinkers  to  vivify 
it  by  an  idea  of  which  in  Lucretius  there  is  no  trace. 
Put  into  language  less  imposing  than  his  own,  the 
gospel  of  Lucretius  virtually  comes  to  this,  that  men 
may  eat  and  drink  and  propagate  their  kind  in  com- 
fort if  only  they  will  hold  fast  to  the  belief  that  men, 
when  they  die,  slip  into  their  burrows  like  rabbits, 
and  will,  though  they  have  done  with  pleasure,  be 
out  of  the  reach  of  pain — that  whatever  they  may 
have  done  or  not  done,  they  will  all,  as  individuals, 
be  as  though  they  never  had  been.  The  only  en- 
largement of  this  gospel  which  modern  thought  can 
suggest  is  rooted  in  a  transference  of  men's  serious 
interests  in  life  from  the  life  of  the  individual  to  the 
life  of  the  community  or  the  race,  and  in  the  thought 
that,  though  the  individual  perishes,  the  race  will 
continue  and  progress. 

The  answer  given  to  this  argument  in  The  Recon- 
struction of  Belief  is  that,  even  if  we  suppose  such 
corporate  progress  to  be  a  reality,  it  cannot  be  in- 
vested with  any  practical  meaning  unless  we  postu- 

369 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

late  the  individual,  and  consider  his  fortunes  first. 
We  have  here  the  Asses'  Bridge  of  all  philosophy 
whatsoever,  and  until  the  philosopher  has  crossed 
it  the  philosopher  can  do  nothing  but  bray.  The 
whole  external  universe,  the  race  of  men  included, 
has  for  no  man  any  perceptible  existence  except  in 
so  far  as  it  is  reflected  in  the  thoughts  and  the  sen- 
sations of  the  individual.  The  conception  of  the 
race  is  nothing,  so  far  as  we  can  know  it,  beyond  what 
the  individual  conceives.  Let  us  suppose  it,  then, 
to  be  in  some  relative  sense  true  that  the  human  race 
is  undergoing  some  change  always  for  the  better  in 
respect  of  its  material  or  moral  conditions,  which 
change  will  continue  so  long  as  the  race  exists.  In 
that  case  the  course  of  Humanity  will  be  comparable 
to  an  upward  road  which  the  race  will  be  always 
ascending  toward  heights  of  welfare  at  present 
hardly  imaginable.  Such  will  be  the  course  of  the 
race,  but  the  course  of  the  individuals  will  be  some- 
thing totally  different.  It  will  for  each  be  a  progress 
not  up  such  a  road,  but  across  it,  no  matter  at  what 
altitude  this  crossing  is  made.  Humanity  will 
always  be  nothing  more  than  a  procession  passing 
from  one  turnstile  to  another,  the  one  leading  out  of, 
and  the  other  leading  into,  a  something  which  always 
must  be,  for  each  individual,  a  nullity.  Apart  from 
the  individual,  nothing  which  the  human  race  knows 
as  desirable  can  exist;  and,  logically  and  practically 
alike,  the  only  efficient  connection  between  the 
individual  and  the  race  must  first  of  all  be  a  con- 

370 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

nection  not  with  the  race  as  such,  and  not  with 
external  nature,  but  with  something  which  is  beyond 
both,  and  is  not  comprehended  in  either. 

The  only  conceivable  human  being  who  will,  apart 
from  religion,  ever  be  able  to  describe  himself  as 
coextensive  with  the  human  race  will,  as  Nietzsche 
puts  it  in  one  of  his  most  memorable  sentences,  be 
the  last  man  left  alive  when  the  rest  of  the  human 
race  is  frozen.  He,  and  he  only,  will  be  able  to  say 
truly:  "Homo  sum.  Humani  nihil  a  me  alienum 
puto." 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  speech  at,  192. 

Acland,  family  of,  3. 

—  Sir  Henry  at  Oxford,  78. 

Aide",  Hamilton,  98,  130. 

Alexandria,  228. 

Alford,  Lady  Marian,  on  society, 
119. 

America,  political  visit  to,  308. 

American  architecture,  322. 

Amherst,  Lord  and  Lady,  292. 

Ardverikie,   Sir  John  Ramsden's 
lodge,  145,  307. 

Aristocracy  and  Evolution,  265. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  as  Mr.  Luke  in 
The  New  Republic,  88. 

Ashburton,  Louisa,  Lady,  117. 

Rawlin  Mallock,  Whig  mem- 
ber for,  4. 

Astor,  Mr.  John  Jacob,  in  New 
York,  314. 

Austin,  Alfred,  Poet  Laureate,  120. 

Baker,  Sir  Samuel,  226-227. 

Baltimore,  309,  320. 

Batthyany,  Prince  and  Princess, 

241-242. 
Beaufort  Castle   (Lord  Lovat's), 

129. 

Bcaulieu,  villa  at,  203. 
Beckett,     Ernest,     second    Lord 

Grimthorpe,  195. 
Benbecula,  island  of,  304. 
Bevan,    Mr.     (the    last    of    the 

"dandies"),  60. 
Bismarck,  Countesses  Marie  and 

Helen,  55. 
Blatchford,  Lord,  30. 


Blayney,  Lord,  friend  of  Crom- 
well's, 4. 

Blenheim,  152. 

Blunt,  Wilfrid,  poet,  and  breeder 
of  Arab  horses,  53,  129. 

Boroughs,  rotten  Cornish,  159. 

Breakfast  party  at  Lord  Hough- 
ton's,  103. 

Bright,  John,  as  land  agitator;  his 
absurd  statistics,  182. 

Brittany,  visit  to,  329. 

Broglio,  castle  of,  237. 

Browning,  Robert,  71. 

Buller,  Emma  and  Antony,  30. 

Bulwer,  Sir  Henry,  in  Cyprus,  227. 

Burdett-Coutts,  Miss,  at  Torquay, 
61. 

Bute,  Lord,  original  of  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  Lothair,  131; 
at  Chiswick,  131;  at  Cardiff 
Castle,  151. 

Butler,  Dr.  Nicholas  Murray,  313. 

Byram,  Sir  John  Ramsden's,  in 
Yorkshire,  161. 

Cannes,  first  visit  to,  167;  minia- 
ture villa  at,  167;  subsequent 
visits,  241. 

Cardiff  Castle,  157. 

Carlyle,  introduction  to,  64. 

Carriages,  old  traveling,  16. 

Gary,  Mr.,  of  Tor  Abbey,  and 
R.  Mallock  as  smugglers,  5. 

Sir  Henry,  sells  Cockington 

to  R.  Mallock,  temp.  Charles 

1,4- 
Castles,  different  classes  of,  152. 


25 


373 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 

Catholic  society  in  London,  130.  Eaglehurst,  241. 

Champernowne  family  related  to  Eaton,    Alfred    Montgomery   at, 

Mallocks,  7.  152. 

Chelston  Cross,  built  by  Mr.  W.  Elvaston  Castle,  157. 

Proude,  49.  Erskine,   Lady,   hostess  at  Tor- 

Chillingham  Castle,  155.  quay,  54. 

Civic  Federation  of   New  York,  Everingham  Park,  old  Yorkshire 

308.  Catholic  house,  154. 

Clark,   Mr.   George,   meeting   at  Exeter,  Henry  Philpotts,  Bishop 

Cardiff,  158.  of,  31-34. 

Cleveland,  Duchess  of,  149.  R.  Mallock's  connection  with, 

Cockington  Church,  17.  temp.   Elizabeth   and   James 

Court,  13.  I,  4. 

Estate,    no   building   leases 

granted  till  1860,  49.  Famaugusta,  enormous  ruins  of, 

Cockington  village,  15.  233. 

Conservative      party,      besetting  "Fane,  Violet,"  130. 

weakness  of,  214,  268.  Farmer,  Devonshire,  on  free  will, 

Conversation,  the  arts  of,  101.  24;  on  the  fall  of  Jericho,  24. 

Country    houses,    description    of  Fielding,  a  child's  imitation  of  his 

various,  146-167.  novels,  35. 

Currie,    Philip,    afterward    Lord  Florence,  interesting  houses  in  and 

Currie,  130.  near,  236. 

Cyprus,  winter  visit  to,  227,  235.  Froude,    Antony,   historian,   and 

Carlyle,  64. 

Dandies,  63.  Archdeacon,  equestrian,  di- 

Dartington  Hall,  12.  lettante,  artist,  magistrate,  6. 

Parsonage,  10.  Froude,  Hurrell,  leader  of  Trac- 

Dartmouth  as  a  rotten  borough,  tarian  movement,  6. 

50.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William,  in- 

De  Vere,  Aubrey,  54.  teresting     society     at     their 

Dempster,  Miss  C.,  241.  house,  50. 

Denbury  Manor,  7.  William,  his  discoveries  in 

"Denzil  Place,"  poem  by  "Violet  naval  architecture,  51. 

Fane,"  129.  Fryston,  161. 
Diagrams,     statistical,     used     at 

public  meetings,  191.  Gaskell,  C.  Milnes;  Lord  Hough- 

Doctrine  and  Doctrinal  Disruption,  ton's  characteristic  advice  to 

276.  him,  59. 

Dorlin,  Lord  Howard's  lodge  in  George,  Henry,  limitations  of  his 

the  Highlands,  175.  attack  on  private  wealth,  173; 

Dreams,  poems  written  in,  259.  his  ignorance  of  statistics,  188. 

Dunrobin,  146.  Georges,  Sir  Ferdinando:  his  im- 

374 


INDEX 


mense   landed   properties   in 

Maine,  4;  Mallock's  partner 

temp.  Charles  I,  4. 
Glasgow,   the  author  speaks  at, 

192. 
Glenthorne,  its  lonely  and  singular 

situation,  153. 
Governesses,  high  Tory,  28. 
Gratz,  246. 
Greenock,  Lord,  195. 
Grimthorpe,  Lord,  194. 

Hare,  Augustus,  his  indiscretions 

as  a  writer  of  memoirs,  136. 
Harvard,  317-318. 
Hatchments  in  Cockington  Church, 

17. 

Heart  of  Life,  The,  280. 

Hebrides,  the  Outer,  304. 

Heligan,  the  John  Tremaynes' 
house  in  Cornwall,  159. 

Herbert,  Auberon,  a  devotee  of 

"the  simple  life,"  122-124. 
—  of  Lee,  Lady,  177. 

Hewel  Grange,  160. 

Hibbert,  Mrs.  Washington,  130. 

Highlands,  the,  first  visit  to,  175. 

Hoch  -  Osterwitz,  extraordinary 
castle  of,  245. 

Hotels,  old-fashioned,  private,  in 
London,  94;  extravagant  gild- 
ing of  American,  316. 

Houghton,  Tx>rd,  at  Torquay,  58; 
his  enormous  acquaintance, 
59;  his  dry  wit  and  humor, 
60;  his  social  advice  to  the 
author,  60;  breakfast  party 
given  in  London  by,  103;  his 
remarkable  defense  of  one  of 
the  author's  novels,  172;  in 
the  Highlands,  177. 

Houghton,  old  Catholic  house  in 
Yorkshire,  155. 


Sir  Robert  Walpole's,  in  Nor- 
folk, 151. 

Howard,  Kenneth,  96. 

Hoy,  island  of,  its  colossal  cliffs, 
300. 

Hugel,  Baron  von,  Austrian  diplo- 
mat, 237. 

Human  Document,  A,  255-278. 

Huxley  as  Mr.  Storks  in  The  New 
Republic,  87-88. 

In  an  EncJianted  Island,  229. 
Individualist,  The,  281. 
Ireland,  visits  in,  164. 
Is  Life  Worth  Living?  169. 

James,  William,  at  Harvard,  317. 
Jerningham,  C.  E.,  200. 
Jerome,  William  Travers,  321. 
Jersey,  Julia,  Lady,  126. 
Jowett,  as  Doctor  Jenkinson  in  The 
New  Republic,  88. 

Kidd,  Benjamin,  on  Social  Evolu- 
tion, 264. 

Kippax,  Yorkshire,  a  product  of 
architectural  rivalry,  162. 

Kirkwall  and  its  cathedral,  299. 

Knebworth,  its  pseudo  -  Gothic 
architecture,  257,  260;  "Oui- 
da's"  visit  to,  256;  a  night  of 
conversation  at,  288. 

K&rmend,  castle  of,  in  Hungary, 
246. 

Labor  and  the  Popular  Welfare,  261 . 
Land  agitation  in  the  Highlands, 
1 80. 

agitator   on    Fort    William 

coach,  184. 

the  old  basis  of  London  so- 
ciety, 93;  decline  in  rent  of 
agricultural  since  1880,  93. 


375 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 


Lane  Fox,  George,  211. 
Larnaca  in  Cyprus,  229. 
Laureateship,  competitors  for,  121. 
Library,  secret  hours  in  a,  36. 
Limits  of  Pure  Democracy,  333. 
Literature  and  action,  341-371. 
Literature  and  utilitarianism,  343. 
—  as  speech  made  permanent, 

342. 
Littlehampton,  private  tutor  at, 

39- 

Lloyd  Bryce,  310. 

Long  Island,  country  house  in,  310. 

Lowther,  Mrs.  William,  117. 

Lucretius  on  Life  and  Death,  366. 

Lul worth  Castle,  154. 

Lyme,  163. 

Lytton,  as  contrasted  with  Car- 
lyle,  65;  second  Lord,  early 
acquaintance  with,  66;  his 
poetry  and  his  generous  tem- 
per, 67;  poem  composed  by 
him  in  a  dream,  259. 

first  Lord,  at  Torquay,  54. 

Mallock  family,  3-5. 

Richard,  as  member  for  Tor- 
quay division  of  Devonshire, 
209;  support  given  him  by 
George  Lane  Fox  and  J. 
Sandars,  211. 

Mallocks  as  members  of  Parlia 
ment  for  Lyme,  Poole,  Totnes, 
and  Ashburton,  3. 

of  the  eighteenth  century: 

their  ecclesiastical  patronage, 
and  their  patronage  of  the 
turf,  5. 

Manchester,  speech  at,  on  the  land 
question,  192. 

Manning,  Cardinal,  131. 

Marx,  Karl,  his  influence  in  Eng- 
land about  1880,  173,  179. 


Memoirs,  difficulties  of  writing,i35. 
Metaphors,    the    secret    of    their 

force  in  literature,  349. 
Molesworth,  Sir  Louis,  159. 
Monte  Carlo,  194-208. 
Montrose,  Duchess  of  (Caroline), 

'•    99- 
Morgan,  J.  Pierpont,  323,  327. 

Naval  architecture,  Mr.  Froude's 

experiments  in,  51. 
Negro,  spiritual  ambitions  of  a, 

327. 

Nevill,  Lady  Dorothy,  101. 

Miss  Meresia,  her  lesson  in 

oratory  at  Strathfieldsaye, 
no. 

New  Domesday  Book,  studied  by 
the  author  at  Ardverikie,  187. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  50. 

New  Paul  and  Virginia,  The,  90. 

New  Republic,  The,  87. 

New  York:  the  opera  there  a  social 
function,  312;  dinner  parties 
in,  and  other  entertainments, 
312;  good  taste  in  fashionable 
entertainments,  316;  author's 
address  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, 313;  Evelyn  Nesbit 
and  the  Thaw  trial,  321; 
ladies'  club  in,  author's  ad- 
dress at  opening  of,  324. 

Nicosia,  230. 

Noble,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Saxton,  294. 

Noltland  Castle,  in  the  Orkneys, 
301. 

Normans  and  Saxons,  28. 

Oban,  175. 

Old  Order  Changes,  The,  analysis 

of,  214-217. 
Orford,  Lord,  his  views  of  society, 

97- 


376 


INDEX 


Osborne,  Father  B.,  son  of  a 
prominent  Evangelical,  240. 

"Ouida"  in  London,  126;  at  Flor- 
ence, 256;  at  Knebworth,  256. 

Oxford,  undergraduate  life  at,  68; 
suppers  and  concerts  at,  70- 
71;  Robert  Browning  and 
Ruskin  at,  71-79;  rejection 
of  dogmatic  Christianity  at, 
82;  suicide  of  Balliol  under- 
graduate at,  80;  orthodox 
apologists  at,  83;  The  New 
Republic  at,  87. 

Paget,  Sir  Augustus  and  Lady, 
228. 

Pater,  as  Mr.  Rose,  in  The  New 
Republic,  88. 

Pelham  (Lord  Lytton's  novel), 
social  advice  to  her  son  from 
the  hero's  mother,  97. 

Philpot,  Mr.,  private  tutor  at 
Littlehampton,  39;  his  taste 
for  poetry,  39;  the  author's 
happy  years  under  tuition  of, 
39-49;  his  professed  Radical- 
ism in  politics  and  religion, 
43;  his  fastidiousness  in 
choice  of  pupils,  43. 

Philpotts,  Henry,  Bishop  of  Exe- 
ter, examples  of  his  polished 
wit,  32. 

Poetry,  author's  early  devotion  to, 

35-37- 

Poor,  the  rural,  of  Devonshire, 
20-29. 

Pope  as  author's  earliest  model,  35. 

Popoff,  Admiral,  his  visit  to  Mr. 
W.  Froude  at  Chelston  Cross, 
Si- 

Primrose  League  meeting  at  Cock- 
ington,  humors  of  the  occa- 
sion, 211. 


Prose,  methods  of  writing  good, 

347- 
Prosody,  attempts  to  write  Eng- 

lish verse  according  to  Latin, 

386. 
Provence,  the,  French  trans- 

atlantic steamer,  328. 

Queen  of  Holland  at  Cockington, 


Raby  Castle,  150. 

Ramsden,  Lady  Guendolen:  the 
author  helps  her  in  editing 
family  memoirs,  100;  has  to 
reject  the  most  amusing  parts, 
100. 

-  Sir  John,  an  ideal  country 
gentleman,  161. 

Reconstruction  of  Belief,  The,  291. 
Religion  as  a  Credible  Doctrine,  284. 
Religion  as  an  element  of  civiliza- 

tion, 291. 

Riegersbourg,  castle  of,  252. 
Roden,  Lady,  the  charm  of  her 

conversation,  101. 

-  Lord  and  Lady,  in  Ireland, 
164. 

Romance  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
A,  169;  violent  attacks  on, 
170;  analysis  of  its  philo- 
sophical purport,  170;  de- 
fended by  Catholic  priest 
and  Lord  Houghton,  171-172. 

Roosevelt,  President,  author's 
meeting  with,  at  Harvard, 
318. 

Ruskin,  meeting  with,  at  Oxford, 
78;  his  extreme  charm  of 
manner,  79;  temperamentally 
opposed  to  Jowett,  79;  his 
insistence  on  the  need  of 
definite  religious  belief,  86; 


377 


MEMOIRS  OF  LIFE  AND  LITERATURE 


as  Mr.  Herbert  in  The  New 
Republic,  88. 

St.  Andrews  Boroughs,  invitation 
to  stand  for,  191. 

St.  Helier,  Lady,  and  Duke  of 
Wellington,  108. 

St.  Hilarion,  castle  of,  232. 

St.  Michael's  Mount  (Cornwall), 
148. 

St.  Vincent,  first  Lord,  14. 

Sartor  Resartus,  Carlyle's,  64. 

Savile,  Augustus,  96. 

Season  in  London,  138. 

Seaton,  first  Lord,  14. 

Sermon,  Jowett's,  in  The  New 
Republic,  88 ;  semisocialist, 
by  priest  in  The  Old  Order 
Changes,  219. 

Servants,  Old  World,  18. 

Shelley,  Sir  Percy  and  Lady,  114. 

Sherborne  House,  163. 

Susan,  Lady,  163. 

the  late  Lord,  163. 

Shropshire,  county  ball  in,  142. 

Sloane,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  of  New 
York,  315. 

Smuggling  by  two  country  gentle- 
men in  Devonshire,  5. 

"Social  Democratic  Federation," 

173- 

Social  Equality,  181. 
Socialism,  A  Critical  Examination 

of,  329- 

,  elements  of,  in  The  Old 

Order  Changes,  222. 

Society  in  London,  its  traditional 
basis,  92. 

Society  in  the  country,  144. 

Somers,  Lady,  117. 

Somerset,  Duchess  of,  her  con- 
versational humor,  100. 

Spencer,    Herbert,    letters    from, 


about  Aristocracy  and  Evolu- 
tion, 266. 

Stan  way,  picture  of  life  at,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  162. 

"Statistical  Monographs,"  333. 

Stowe,  151. 

Straff ord,  Cora,  Lady,  151. 

Suicide,  her  funeral  at  Monaco, 
207. 

Summer  on  the  borders  of  Caith- 
ness, 292. 

Sutherland,  Duchess  (Annie),  at 
Torquay,  212. 

Swinburne,  admiration  of  his 
poetry  at  Littlehampton,  47; 
at  Jowett's  dinner  table  and 
afterward,  72;  at  an  under- 
graduate's luncheon,  74;  his 
humor,  75;  recitation  of  his 
own  verses,  77. 

System  played  at  Monte  Carlo, 
196-197. 

Tchiacheff,  Madame  de,  well- 
known  Florentine  hostess, 
236. 

Tennyson,  quoted  as  illustrating 
the  force  of  metaphor  in 
poetry,  352. 

Tiffany's,  two  queer  customers  at, 
242. 

Torquay,  extension  of,  over  Cock- 
ington  and  Chelston  property, 
13-14;  winter  society  at,  54- 

55- 

Torre  a  Cona,  near  Florence, 
238. 

Trevarthenick,  Sir  L.  Moles- 
worth's,  159. 

Trevelyans  of  East  Devon,  3. 


Ugbrooke,  the  Cliffords,  in  Devon- 
shire, 154. 


378 


INDEX 


Valentines,  two  living,  202. 
Vay  di  Vaya,  Monsignor,  314. 
Veil   of  the    Temple,   passage   on 

Darwin  quoted  in,  284;  table 

talk    on    free    will    in,    287; 

verses  from,  quoted,  288-289; 

President  Roosevelt's  interest 

in,  319- 
Verses,    three    volumes    of    the 

author's,  340. 
Vicenza,  243. 
Villa  at  Beaulieu,  205. 

Maser,  near  Asolo,  244. 

Vyner,  Clair,  130. 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  272. 
Wilfrid,  134. 


Wellington,  second  Duke  of,  his 
conversational  wit,  105-112; 
his  last  Waterloo  banquet  at 
Apseley  House,  107;  as  a 
translator  of  Horace,  112. 

Wemyss,  Lord,  135. 

Wentworth,  Lord,  53,  69. 

Westminster,  Constance,  Duchess 
of,  99. 

White,  Stanford,  321-322. 

Whyte  Melville,  124. 

Will,  freedom  of,  284. 

Wilton,  Laura,  Lady,  202. 

Wordsworth,  35. 

Wrath,  Cape,  296. 

Young,  Rev.  Julian,  54. 


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